What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

Latest Episodes:

117 - TikTok Star Mackenzie Barmen Jan 24, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have TikTok Star Mackenzie Barmen. We talk about what she has already accomplished in her very short time in LA, as well as some of the projects she has planned for the future. There is so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesMackenzie Barmen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mackenziebarmen/Mackenzie Barmen on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mackenziebarmen?lang=enMackenzie Barmen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAP_cFPc2fqGTe50YhOlkDg/videosMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMackenzie Barman:There's a part of me that worries on some level all the time, but then there's a stronger part of me. I think that's pretty delusional in a good way, that I'm like, no, I am certain that I'm supposed to do this, and I just can't falter. I just, I'm doing,Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, I'll tell you what I've been talking about. If you've been listening to any number of my podcasts or by social media, I've been saying the same thing a lot. I've been saying, if you are an aspiring whatever, if you're an actor or a writer or performer, put your work out there. Just start doing it, and the more you do it, the better you get. And then my next guest is someone who did just that and is doing that, and I discovered her maybe a year or two ago, and we're going to talk, and she's big. We're going to talk to her about her journey here. Mackenzie Barman, thank you so much for coming here. Lemme tell you when I first found you, and then you'll Yes, please. Then we'll tell you were doing a bit, it was a piece on you were reciting nursery rhymes, and you playing two characters.You generally will talk about this, but you generally do two characters have, and you're both, and usually it's kind of a sweet and naive version of you. And then there's kind of a meaner more, not sinister, but cynical. And I guess she puts you in your place. She's a little, and she wants up making you cry a lot. And so the sweet one was talking about nursery rhyme, and the other one was telling you, you're so naive, you have no idea what these nursery rhymes are about. And so that blew up and that's how I found you, and it was really funny. I loveMackenzie Barman:It. Thank you.Michael Jamin:Well, tell me, what is this? So you're huge on TikTok, you have almost 3 million followers, which isMackenzie Barman:AlmostMichael Jamin:Huge. I've written for shows that haven't been seen by anywhere near 3 million people. So you have a giant following, but tell me, so why did you start doing this?Mackenzie Barman:Well, I was an actor in the pandemic, and I didn't really know what to do with myself. And so everyone was on TikTok for fun. That was when TikTok was really blowing up, and I kind of just decided to start making videos and then not taking it seriously at all. But then I was like, well, it gives me a kind of a platform. And no one was really using it like that yet. But I started to see some sketches pop up and I was like, huh, or viral videos, whatever. And then I ended up just at random seeing somebody write about a nursery rhyme in a Facebook status. And I was still using Facebook, which I don't, and I was like, oh. And I learned in that moment what that nursery rhyme meant. So I just on a whim made that firstMichael Jamin:Video. So that was one of your first videos?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, it was one. I did a whole series of those ones. So I did it and I just kind of improvised it. And the next morning I woke up and it had gone kind of viral, and so I made another one, and then I made another one and they kind of just blew up. And so, yeah, it was kind of random.Michael Jamin:But your intention, it was boredom or was it, you said you wanted to have a platform. What was your goal?Mackenzie Barman:Well, it was a little bit out of boredom, but it was more so like, well, let me put myself out there. And I used to go to a lot of casting director workshops and when I lived in New York City, and they would always say the same thing when YouTube was really big, make your own web series, put yourself out there, all that stuff. And so that's always been in the back of my mind, and I've always kind of considered myself a multihyphenate. I also shoot and direct and all that stuff, so I was like, I need to do that. So that's why I've always kind of focused on acting, being the primary thing in my videos. Let's get to that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I was going to say, it's really smart. You show a range. I mean, you have, like I said, the sweet side, and then the other side is, and sometimes you play well, you're always playing characters, but to me it's smart. You're showing your range as an actor.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah.Michael Jamin:What do your reps have to say about all this?Mackenzie Barman:They love it. I actually got my managers through TikTok, they found me and oh myMichael Jamin:God, really?Mackenzie Barman:I had already had voiceover representation through my agency, but I didn't have a manager or anything. And I met my manager, Rachel. I loved her right away. And they love it, and they love the content and that it's acting first and the series and all that.Michael Jamin:So they give you any feedback or No, they just like, we love it.Mackenzie Barman:No, not really. They just let me roll with it. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And then what other opportunities have come from all this?Mackenzie Barman:Gosh, well, one of the coolest things is the relationships that I've built with other creators, especially actor creators. And you just kind of know when you vibe with some people or when I watch certain people, I'm like, I know our brains work the same way. So I seek those people out to become, I love getting to know the people that I admire. It's cool to meet people talent first, and then it's doing a play with somebody. IMichael Jamin:Know you collaborate with people sometimes. I've seen some of those videos you've done.Mackenzie Barman:I've done a couple. I'm going to be doing more now that I'm in LA and with a lot more people. But that's been a really cool thing that's come from this. DidMichael Jamin:You start this in New York your first three years? Yeah. Oh, really?Mackenzie Barman:Okay. Yeah, I just moved to LA a few weeks ago. I was in New YorkMichael Jamin:City. Oh, when you said you changed your apartments, I assumed you were moved, okay. From in la, but you're Oh, you're, well, welcome to la. Okay. Thank you. Wow, this is a big adjustment for you. So what prompted you to move to LA then?Mackenzie Barman:Well, my managers are out here, and since TikTok, I've really, it's funny. I was always kind of like, I wanted to really be such a chameleon and not hone in on any one thing. I didn't want to just do comedy. I didn't want to just do drama. But now with TikTok, it's really pushed me more into comedy, and I've found that I really do love it. So out here, there's so many comedy opportunities, and I'm going to be doing part of a live show on December 10th, and just being, I just needed to be out here.Michael Jamin:Okay. So how did you get, you've only been here for three minutes, so how did you get this live show already?Mackenzie Barman:Through a friend of mine, actually, through social media. Someone you, ohMichael Jamin:My God, so smart. I'm always yelling at people. They're like, do I have to be in la? I'm like, well, this is where everyone is. I mean, why would you know? What were you doing? Were you doing a lot of theater in New York?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, so I did a lot of regional theater. I did an off-Broadway musical, and then when the pandemic happened, I was really trying to shift into more TV and film work. I really wanted to be on tv. I still do. That's really my big focus is to be on tv, be in movies. But I was kind of transitioning and doing the casting director workshops and doing all those things, and then the pandemic hit. But yeah, mostly theater. I'm a theater girlMichael Jamin:Now. Did you study, where have you studied? Did you study in college? Where did, yeah,Mackenzie Barman:I went to a SUNY school and I loved it. I went to SUNY Potsdam in upstate New York, and I studied theater and theater education. I didn't really start doing plays until high school and in high school. SoMichael Jamin:You're from New York?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I'm from New York. FromMichael Jamin:New York, okay.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, born and raised, upstate New York, near Albany. And then, yeah, I moved down to the city to be an actor and do all that. Right.Michael Jamin:Wow. You've only been here three weeks and so much has already happened for you already.Mackenzie Barman:What do you think? Yeah, I'm trying.Michael Jamin:What do you think It's a culture shock. What do you think?Mackenzie Barman:Right now, I'm in my lust for life extrovert phase where I'm like, because a homebody pretty much, I'm an extroverted homebody, so I like to be home a lot. But right now I'm just trying to be out a lot, meet people that I've, and just kind of be really social,Michael Jamin:Been amazing. How did you get into play? Okay, you moved here. Did you stay with a friend when you found your, how did, because I'm telling people come out. How did you do it? How didMackenzie Barman:It was a pain? So I visited last August, and I stayed with one of my managers. Actually, I crashed at her place. I went a couple different places, but she's the best. I love her. And they're in the West Hollywood area, so it's really the only place I know. So that's where I am now. I'm in West Hollywood. And then I looked at a couple apartments when I was here, but I really didn't know where I was. I kind of did, but I don't really know. And then, so I just, Zillow and Trulia, and I ended up finding this apartment on Trulia, and I had a couple of friends come look at it and FaceTime me,Michael Jamin:And it was good enough.Mackenzie Barman:I was like,Michael Jamin:And then Did you drive here? YouMackenzie Barman:Flew here? I drove,Michael Jamin:Yeah. That's how you do it. Did your car. Wow. Now tell me, when you start posting, these are thought out, these videos you make, how much time do you spend a day making, and how many times do you post a day?Mackenzie Barman:It's really funny. I usually post once a day at most. I really should try to post once a day at least. It's usually every two or three days. Oh, really? Yeah. But I've been kind of busy, but it was once a day when I was doing the nursery rhymes, but I kind of got a little burned out, I think.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you do get burned out. It'sMackenzie Barman:A lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. But I don't write anything beforehand. I improvise everything, but I kind of write it in my head as I go, and I have a loose idea going into it of if it was a nursery rhyme or something, I would have to research and have the facts ready. I would do that research beforehand and then kind of reference it as I improvised it. But for the character stuff, it's all kind of, they kind of just take over. I take a backseat,Michael Jamin:But you must edit some stuff out, or no, is everything what you say goes in?Mackenzie Barman:Sometimes if I say something and then I'm like, even if it's improvised, I'm like, huh, you know what? I think I want to tweak that and put the intonation somewhere else, or put a micro look or an eyebrow raise kind of somewhere else. I'll redo it. But most of the time it's my first take, honestly.Michael Jamin:So, okay. I was going to ask you where you're editing it because you're like this, you're holding it, and you do your one line, and then you turn around and do the other line, and thenMackenzie Barman:I swap. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So you're not even editing it?Mackenzie Barman:No, because I shoot in the app, unless it's Snapchat filters, which a couple of my characters are Snapchat filters, in which case I'll film them. It used to be that if I was doing the Snapchat filters, I would just shoot one character as a monologue and then post that. But then with my Danny and Bab series, this new, these characters, I haveMichael Jamin:The ugly babies that you post.Mackenzie Barman:They're adults. Okay. I just, I'll pull up his filter, shoot his line, save the video, switch the filter, do her response.Michael Jamin:I'm surprised you can't even remember what you just said. You know what I'm saying? With the last character just said,Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I don't know. It's just kind of alive in that moment. ButMichael Jamin:Are you thinking in advance, okay, this is going to do well, or this is just what I want to do today? Do you care?Mackenzie Barman:I do care only because I kind of have to care. I feel like it influences so much. Now your numbers and all that stuff, but I also care because I want people to like it. I want people to genuinely have a response to it that's a little deeper maybe than normal. On TikTok scrolling, which I do get a lot. I'll get people being like, wait, this is actually, so peopleMichael Jamin:Are, well, your fans really loved you. I've read some of these comments, and what surprises me is that you interact with pretty much everyone.Mackenzie Barman:I try. I try and they're smart. Okay.Michael Jamin:Why do you try?Mackenzie Barman:Because it, it's weird. It's like this weird, I don't really ever go to anyone's profile or whatever, but I can almost hear the comment in my head, and it almost in that brief moment feels like a conversation's actively happening. So I'm bantering with this person, or I don't know. It's just, it's fun to be engaging. And I've had people respond when I do engage and they're like, oh my God, I can't believe you applied. And that to me is just so lovely.Michael Jamin:It is lovely, but it's so much work on your part.Mackenzie Barman:I know, but I sit and scroll a lot. So it's like part of the package. It's like part of producing the video almost is then the engagement after. And I don't do it as much as I used to, but I do. It depends on what mood I'm in.Michael Jamin:I wonder though. I wonder what you're supposed to do when I started, are you supposed to, I'm not even sure when I get, my page is very different from yours. They have questions for me. They want, as opposed to you. I think they're like your fans, they just want to, and so they'reMackenzie Barman:Just making a commentary on itMichael Jamin:Or something. Well, they really like your show. They like what? You're the fans. And so I just don't know what the rules are. I don't know if you're supposed toMackenzie Barman:Interact yourself. I dunno. And it depends. If somebody does leave a nasty comment or say something mean, which is oddly really rare, don't come from me guys. Don't start. But it's rare. They're pretty good, my, because some people get it b…

Full show notes at the publisher

116 - Choreographer Phil Wright Jan 17, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have choreographer Phil Wright. We talk about the huge risk he took moving out to Los Angeles from a successful career in Miami. He dives into some of the famous people he has worked with as well as what his most viral video is. There is so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesPhil Wright on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phil_wright_/Phil Wright on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philwright_Phil Wright on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhilWrightMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptPhil Wright:And it's hard because we're working when we're not working, there's no punching and punch out clock withMichael Jamin:Us.Phil Wright:So it's tough. So getting the brain to relax and just actually sit down and watch a movie and not worry about camera angles, or how did he save his line to make him funny?Michael Jamin:Really?Phil Wright:I've lost, and which I'm trying to get back to. I've lost the concept of just being a consumer.Michael Jamin:You're listening to. What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin, another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about, guys. So as you know, I'm really into talking to creative people who've just done interesting things and have invented themselves in ways. And so ordinarily I talk to screenwriters and authors and actors and directors, people like that, but I just discovered this guy I want to introduce you to. His name is Phil Wright, and he's the first dancer choreographer I'm talking to, which I think is so, I don't know. I got a lot of questions for you. Phil. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for doing this,Phil Wright:Dude. Thank you for having me. I'm such a fan, man. You don't realize I'm such a good fan. I watch your page all the time. I'm always interested in what you're getting into. Ah,Michael Jamin:That's very kind. I'm a fan of you. I have to know doing something, which is really interesting. Not a lot of people can make a living as a dancer and even a choreographer that's even fewer people. And yet this is, so where did this all begin then?Phil Wright:Okay, so originally from Miami, Florida. I moved to LA about 10 years ago. I had stepped into the dance world accidentally, I guess because I wasn't really technically trained per se. I didn't start at a young age. I started dancing on the streets. That's when we had crews, and if you weren't part of a crew, then you were a nerd. And I wasn't a nerd by any means. I wasn't book smart, so you had to be a part of a crew, and that's what it was. So it sort of kept me off of the street, out of trouble and fast forward, moved to LA about 10 years ago and just rebranded myself in what I was trying to do with my career. I actually started teaching children to start things off. Kind of got like, you know what? I think I could do better. I think I could, when youMichael Jamin:Say teaching children, you were teaching at schools at where? Yeah,Phil Wright:Teaching at local dance studios around the neighborhood. And honestly, it just started off like, Hey, I need some extra money, man. So I'm serving tables at Applebee's, serving two for twenties and three o'clock rolls around. I go teach a class and do my double shift, go right back to Applebee's and do the same thing all over again. And we won't talk about poker nights. But anyway.Michael Jamin:So you were starting at the bottom, but when you moved to la, did you hope to get in music videos? What was your aspiration?Phil Wright:Well, I mean, first off, I had sort of established myself in Miami. I started teaching for the Miami Heat Dance Team. Oh, really? Miami Billboard Awards, the Latin Billboard awards. And I had sort of caught fire in Miami, and I had an apartment in BIS Camp Boulevard. So I was fine. I didn't really need to move.Michael Jamin:So that must have been hard. You're going to leave all that behind.Phil Wright:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:You wanted a bigger pool or what? It wasPhil Wright:Huge. It was a huge sacrifice. And then at that time, my girlfriend, well, now wife, I just came home and I just sort of got motivated by my friends who had moved from Miami to la.Michael Jamin:And how old were you at this point when you decided to leave it behind?Phil Wright:Dude, I told my kids this all the time. It's never too late. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 26 years old.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. Well, you're still young, but, but yeah,Phil Wright:But in artistry world, especially if you're in front of the camera, not behind the camera writing orMichael Jamin:Directly,Phil Wright:If you're in front of the camera and you have eyes on the camera, you have to be, I don't know, fresh, I guess. I don't know.Michael Jamin:Well, especially dancing, because it takes a wear and tear on your body. I mean, it really does. Definitely.Phil Wright:So during that time, you would consider that, woo, that's kind of late in the game. So I moved to LA and started all over, man. I had gave up everything and I had dreams, and I gave it all up and moved to LA to sleep on the floor in my friend's apartment, one bedroom apartment with roaches crawling on me, just,Michael Jamin:And then where did you start from? I should mention, because I haven't said this before. You're huge on YouTube. You've got well over a million followers. That's a big deal, man. That's a very big deal. Thank you. So I mean a household name, but you are making quite a name for yourself. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.Phil Wright:I like to say this broke, gets creative really quick.Michael Jamin:Yes. Tell me howPhil Wright:The motivation to, it's not money per se, it's sort of just being productive. You know what I mean? If I can stay productive, the money will follow. But when you don't necessarily have opportunities knocking at the door every single day, you have to sort of create those opportunities.Michael Jamin:So how were you doing that? What were you doing?Phil Wright:This was the time when Instagram was around and we had our 15 second videos. These were 15 second videos. And I would go out on the street, gorilla style, no permits. I hope they won't catch me now, but no permits, no nothing. And I would get the most popular song that would drop at midnight, photograph something, get two or three friends, and record a dance routine in the middle of the street.Michael Jamin:And this, was it Vine or Instagram?Phil Wright:This was Instagram during the time. This is after Vine.Michael Jamin:Okay.Phil Wright:Now, strategically, what I would do is get the teachers that were already teaching in the classrooms, but I wasn't teaching during that time. No one knew who I was. I knew who those people were because I took those people's classes. So they knew I was a great dancer. They knew I was good people. So they would say, sure, yeah, Phil, we'll dance with you. And no one really, at that time, videos were not big. They weren't a big deal. So I would get them and they would just, Hey, look. And my pitch was like, I only need 15 seconds your time. That's it. 15 seconds, we'll do two eight counts. That's it. And you'll make a new appearance and then you bounce out. ButMichael Jamin:What was your expectation when you were putting these videos up?Phil Wright:My expectations were to get into classrooms, to teach classes.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. Why? Because you need a following to get to teach in a classroom.Phil Wright:Absolutely.Michael Jamin:Really?Phil Wright:Absolutely. SeeMichael Jamin:That I did not know, even in a small little private studio, you need a following.Phil Wright:You need a following. If people don't know who you are, they're not coming to take class.Michael Jamin:But I would think that my daughters went to take dance class and there was a studio in the neighborhood, and we went there.Phil Wright:Yeah, I mean, well, I'm thinking, I'm talking more of entertainment, not your residential.Michael Jamin:So these classes are more,Phil Wright:These are professionalMichael Jamin:Dance classes, classes,Phil Wright:Debbie Reynolds Dance Complex. These are where the pros go toMichael Jamin:Try. Okay.Phil Wright:And my hope was is to grab these teachers and let them be a part of my video, and I produce it. Well, I cut it. I get on my little editing app, cut it up really quick. And my hope was is if they were ever absent, the studios would see that and say, oh, wow, who's this guy dance with? JR Taylor. Oh, Jr. R Taylor's out next week. Let's just get this guy, because JR Taylor must know this guy.Michael Jamin:So funny, because I did a post a while ago where I said, get in the neighborhood, get as close as you can physically possible to the person whose job you want, pick up their scraps. And that's exactly what you did. You just pick up their scraps. And now you're that guy now.Phil Wright:Yeah. And you know what? I actually had a friend of mine, we guess, I don't know, associates, and he came to me, and during that time, I had asked him to be a part of my video. At that time, no one knew me or this and that, and he declined. He was just like, no, I don't have time and everything like that. And now, fast forward six, seven years later, I invited him to my house, to my birthday party. Actually, dude, I've never told you this, but I have to apologize. I didn't know you. I was like, dude, that's water on the bridge. Doesn't matter. You didn't know me. You know what I mean? But I had to put myself out there for people to even say my name, whether if it was good or bad, at least I'm buzzing in some type of way. ButMichael Jamin:You see, people didn't know how serious you were. I'm sure you must've known people who did what you did and gave up after about a week and a half.Phil Wright:Yeah. But bro, I was on a tyrant. I would shoot, say five to seven videos a day, and remember, it's only 15 seconds. So I would shoot that and then release 'em every day throughout.Michael Jamin:It's difficult. It becomes, you're never done. You're never done. It's like, I imagine it's sorting the mail. The mail doesn't stop coming, man. And that's what posting is like. Do you still keep that same schedule?Phil Wright:Well, it's tough. Now. I got two kids. I got a wife, you know what I mean? Now my home base is traveling. I travel a lot. I'm always on the plane. And I've already built up this sort of following online to where now I can, Hey, I'm in Arizona. I can put a post out and say, Hey, I'm in Arizona. And then I'll just get a wild spread of emails. Hey, could you come to my studio? Hey, could you come here?Michael Jamin:Is that right? So that's okay. So I want to know how that works. You decide what city you're going to go to, and you'll spend a week there. You decide, this is all your decision, right? I'm going to go to Phoenix. And then somehow, because all these people follow you on social media, these studio owners, they book you, and they know that the people, your fans are going to come see you at the studio. So it's easy for them. It's almost like a no brainer.Phil Wright:Well, that's the hope. You know what I mean? That you post that and they hope that people come to the studio. But in reality, I do so much with posting and promoting their own studio. They're going to go to Michael Jamin, writers Dance Studio five o'clock, see you there. Whether or not people come or not, the fact that I'm showing up there gives you such a boost to say, Hey, Phil Wright was at my studio. This is the footage. This is the class footage. You might want to check out Michael Jamin Writer's Studio next time that you're in town,Michael Jamin:But are you getting paid a percentage of the people who come, or are they just booking you? And regardless,Phil Wright:We're past that,Michael Jamin:Steve. We can't talk about that. I want to know how it works to be No, no,Phil Wright:No. We can definitely, no, that's sort of like the beginning stages of things. People handle their own the way they want to, but I work off of a flat rate, soMichael Jamin:So they book, you get paid either way,Phil Wright:Right? They book the hotel, the flight, they booked me myMichael Jamin:Time's. So interesting. So you're almost like a comedian, except you're doing dance.Phil Wright:Own my own boss, my own company. I created my own company for, right, Inc. And was able to go move off of that. SoMichael Jamin:Do you have employees working for you? Is that what Well,Phil Wright:I did have an assistant that helped me all the logistics, like getting the flights and the hotels and stuff like that. But she's moved on to bigger and better things. But now I'm just solely working for myself right now, just I don't have How many,Michael Jamin:So you travel every week. Are you in a different city everyPhil Wright:Week? Yeah. So I also do work for another company, a dance convention called Break the Floor. So they hire me seasonal throughout the fall up until the summer, and then I have that. So that's where you see all, I'm in the ballroom full of kids in the classes. They have numbers on their chest andMichael Jamin:Stuff. And those kids, what do they aspire? What do those kids, when you say, what do you think they want?Phil Wright:Most of them want to be professional dancers. Some of them just want to be in the room, some of them. Or you get the families that were past pro dancers that are trying to get the other kids into their kids, into dancing. So the motivation is like, yes, this is a professional. We're hiring Phil Wright, he's coming to Nebraska. Get your tickets now.Michael Jamin:See? And you have to have the right temperament for that, because you have to have the right energy to deal with kids. I mean, I wonder if there's a lot of people like you who do that.Phil Wright:Well, I would say there's not too many kid teachers out there.Michael Jamin:It's interesting. You've got this niche for yourself,Phil Wright:Enormous amount of patience. SoMichael Jamin:Yes.Phil Wright:So I think that helps me out in my age. I'm very one of the very few that teaches kids. There are other few teachers out there, but I think that's where most of my clock comes from.Michael Jamin:Do you have a community of other dancers like yourself who do what you do?Phil Wright:Yeah. I mean, some of them are more on the pro side, like, Hey, they work with artists per se only. Right?Michael Jamin:Interesting.Phil Wright:Luckily for me, I'm in a space where I get to do a little bit of everything,Michael Jamin:Really.Phil Wright:I choreographed commercials. I just finished a commercial with Kevin Hart and DraftKings. That's going to come out later.Michael Jamin:You got to teach him how to dance.Phil Wright:Well, that was pretty funny. That was pretty funny. He came up to me and he was missing his cue, and I was like, because he was supposed to do a pump, and the pyro was supposed to go off in the back. And I go up to Kevin, I was like, Kevin, dude, you're making me lo…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 115 - Author Sheila Heti Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have author Shelia Heti, book writer of Pure Color, Motherhood, Alphabetical Diaries, and many many more. We talk about how I discovered her writing and why Pure Color meant so much to me. She also explains her writing process and how she approaches a story. There is so much more.Show NotesSheila Heti Website: https://www.sheilaheti.com/Sheila Heti on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_HetiMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptSheila Heti:That's what I was thinking.Michael Jamin:It was work harder.Sheila Heti:I was like, I got to work harder than any other writer alive.Michael Jamin:And what did that work look like to you?Sheila Heti:Just always writing and always not being satisfied and being a real critic of my work and trying to make it better and trying to be more, try to get it to sound and more interesting and figure out what my sentences were and letting myself be bad and repeat myself until I got better. And I don't think that I ever let that go. I'm not sitting here today saying, I work harder than any other writer alive. I do remember having that feeling when I was young. That's what I need to do. That's the only wayMichael Jamin:You're listening to What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about today? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about, honestly, one of the greatest, I feel, one of the greatest writers of my generation. Yep, yep. Her name is Sheila Hedy. She's the author of I guess 11 books, including Pure Color, although it's spelled with a U, the Canadian Way, a Garden of Creatures, motherhood, how Should a Person Be? And her forthcoming book, alphabetical Diaries. And she's just an amazing talent. So she's an author, but I don't describe her this way. And by the way, I'm going to talk about Sheila for about 59 minutes, and then at the end I'll let her get a word and then I'll probably cut her off. But I have to give her a good proper introduction. She's really, really that amazing of a writer. So author isn't really the right word. She really is, in my opinion, an artist who paints with words.And if you imagine going up to a Van Gogh painting, standing right up next to it, and then you see all these brushstrokes, and then you take a step back and you're like, okay, now I see the patterns of the brushstrokes. And you take a little step back, oh, the patterns form an image. Then another step back, you say, oh, that's a landscape. It really is like that with her writing. She has these images that she paints with words, and then they form bigger thoughts and you pull back and it's really amazing what she does and how she kind of reinvents herself with each piece. And so I'm so excited and honored she for you to join me here so I can really talk more about this with you. Thank you for coming.Sheila Heti:Yeah, thanks. That introduction made me so happy. Thank you for saying all that.Michael Jamin:Lemme tell you by the way, how I first discovered you. So I have a daughter, Lola, she's 20, she's a writer, and we trade. I write something we trade. It's really lovely that we get to talk about. And so she's off at school, but she left a book behind and I'm like, all right, what's this book she left behind? Because that way I can read it and we can talk about that, have our book club. And she left Pure Color. And I was like, oh, I like the cover, so I'll take a look at it. And what I didn't realize, it was the perfect book to discover you by because it's book about among other things, about a father's relationship with his daughter. So I text her, I say, I'm reading pure color. She goes, Sheila Hedy's, one of my favorite authors. If I could write anybody, it would be her. I'm like, all right, well, I got to continue reading this. And then a couple of days later, I get to the part and I send her a text. I say, you and me would make a great leaf. And she goes, that's my favorite part. The tree. That's my favorite part.You're also an interviewer. You've interviewed some amazing writers. Joan Didion, Margaret Atwood, big shots. And so I'm sure as an interviewer, you give a lot of thought to your first question. So I was trying to, I better give a lot of thought to my first question, and I kept coming back to the same one, which is pure color. It's such a big swing. If you were to pitch me this idea, you'd say, I'm going to write a book. It's about a father's relationship with his daughter, but it's also about a woman's unrequited love with her friend, but it's also about the soul and what it means to have a life. I'd say, I don't know, Sheila, that's kind of a big swing. I don't know about this, but you hit it out of the park, you did it. It was beautifully done. And so my first question is, you come up with an idea like this, where do you get the nerve to think that you can actually pull this off? This is really where do you get the nerve to think that, okay, I'm going to do this.Sheila Heti:The nerve.Michael Jamin:Well, it's such a big swing. It's like, how do you know you can do this? Do you know what I'm saying?Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I could do it. So it's nice to hear. I mean, I don't think that you ever think you're going to be able to finish the book that you start, and then when you finish a book, you never think you're ever going to start a new one. That's sort of where I am right now. In that confused place. There's a part of it that always feels like, I dunno how to explain it. I mean, I don't know how to answer that question. It's a weird process. There's no process. There's no system to doing it, and then you hope you did it. You feel good and it feels done, but you dunno how you ever got there.Michael Jamin:And how do you know you arrived? How do you know when it's time to quit on something? And do you ever quit on something?Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah, A lot. A lot. But usually not like three or four years in, usually 60 pages in or something like that.Michael Jamin:60Sheila Heti:Pages is when you start thinking this is not working.Michael Jamin:Is it a gut feeling? How do you knowSheila Heti:Your curiosity runs out?Michael Jamin:Your curiosity runs out. Okay, so you get bored by it yourself?Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Is that what you're saying?Sheila Heti:Yeah, it's just like, that was fun. That was nice. That was a good couple of weeks. I was really excited. I really thought this was going somewhere. And then it just ends. It's like a relationship. You think, oh, this is so great, I'm going to be with this person. And then after six months you're like,Michael Jamin:I was kidding myself. But you're writing. I have so much I want to say, it seems like you reinvent yourself with each piece. You know what I'm saying? It's like pure color is very, very different from how should a person be, which I was like, okay, I want to read this. I'm not sure how should a person be, which is extremely different from alphabetical diaries, which is almost like an experiment. And I wonder, do you get pushback from your agent or your publisher? Do they want you to do the same thing? We know it works.Sheila Heti:No, I think that at this point there's no expectation of that. When I wrote my second book, there was a feeling like that's not the first one. And there was some disappointment and the publisher said, this book doesn't count as your next book. In part, I think it was so different, but I think at this point that's, I mean, I've been publishing for 20 years. That's not really what people say to me anymore.Michael Jamin:Really? What do they say? They say, oh good, this is fresh. And it's more from you.Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I guess I changed publishers a lot more than other people do. So my publisher of motherhood didn't like pure color, so they rejected it. So I found a different publisher and the publisher of Tickner, my second book didn't like how should a person be? So I found a different publisher. So I think I move around a lot for that reason.Michael Jamin:Is that common with authors? You have to tell me all about this author thing? No, it's not really common.Sheila Heti:No. Usually you have one publisher and one editor and you just stick with them for a long time. SoMichael Jamin:It seems though you came up through the art. Alright, I have this idea of who you are from reading your books. You have, it's all very personal what you write and which makes it brave. It's brave for a couple of reasons. It's brave because you're being so vulnerable, you're putting yourself out there, but it's also brave. I feel like you're trying something new each time and that could fail. And so that to me is part of what makes your writing so exciting. But do you have any expectation when you're writing something which is so different, do you have an expectation of your reader how you want them to react?Sheila Heti:I mean, I want them to get to the end of the book. That's what I want. I want to draw them through, but I don't think I have a feeling like, oh, I want them to be sad on this page and I want them to be curious of this page and feel this way on this page. I just want them to be interested enough to get to the end. So how do I keep that momentum up and how some people conversation, they have long monologues, they're like a monologue, but I'm not because I'm always afraid people are going to lose interest. So I kind of feel like the same with my book. I'm always afraid that somebody's going to lose interest. So I'm always trying to keep it moving,Michael Jamin:But it's not an emotional reaction. I mean, your writing is very philosophical to me. When I'm reading your work, I feel like maybe this is my theory about what you have, and I'm sure it's not right, but it's that there are passages which I feel are so rich and so smart, and I have so much thought that I have to go back and read it again. So I'm wondering if that's what you're thinking. I want to write something that makes people have to read it again.Sheila Heti:No, I never think that because a very fast reader, and I don't reread passages and I don't read slowly. So for me, I'm always thinking that people are reading. I'm always imagining the person reading kind of fast,Michael Jamin:But thought. I mean some of them are really, some of your thoughts are very deep and very profound, and I'm like, I'm not sure if I understood all this. I got to read it again. I mean, don't you think? No.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. I don't really think about that. I don't really think about the person, the reader in that way of like, are they going to have to read this again? Is this going to be hard for them to understand? I think my language is very straightforward. Yeah. I don't know how I think about the reader. I think of myself as the reader. So I'm really writing it so that I like every sentence. I like the way it turns. I like the pictures it makes.Michael Jamin:But when you say I want them to get to the end, what are you hoping they'll do at the end? Is there any hope or expectation?Sheila Heti:Well, I think especially in pure color, the end is really important. It kind of makes the whole book makes sense. And motherhood too, and maybe less how should a person be and less alphabetical diaries. But I think in some cases, a book, I'm somebody who doesn't always read books to the end. I like getting taste of different author's minds and so on. But I think in the case of some books, you have to read it to the end to really understand the whole, so that's in the case of pure color, why I wanted people to get to the endMichael Jamin:BecauseSheila Heti:It makes the beginning mean something different. If you've read.Michael Jamin:It does. I mean it is, and it's about processing grief. So do you outline when you come up with an idea, where do you begin?Sheila Heti:Well, with pure color, I thought I want to write a book about the history of art criticism. So I always start off really far away from where I end up. I always think that I want to write a book of nonfiction and I'm not a good nonfiction writer, so it always ends up being a novel. But I think I usually start off with an, well, in the case of this book, I also started off with this title that I had in my dream. The title was Critics Bayer, BARE. So I was thinking about art criticism and so on, but then I don't know, the books kind of take on their own direction. I never really understood when people said that they had characters that sort of did things that they didn't expect. But I feel like that is true sometimes of the book as a whole. It moves in a direction I didn't expect, so I couldn't outline.Michael Jamin:You don't outline all. And so does it require you to discover what the story is then once you find it, toss out the stuff that's not the story orSheila Heti:Yeah, I basically write way too much and then just cut and try to find the story and move things in different orders and try to find the plot after. I've written a ton of stuff already,Michael Jamin:Because I know from reading, you come from the art world, you're an artist and I think you hang out with artists, people, so you talk about what art is, is that right or no, do not shatter what I think of now. That's not itSheila Heti:Mean and relationships and all that kind ofMichael Jamin:Stuff and relationships. Because I mean, I don't know, it seems like that's why I say you're an artist. You have these conversations even about what art is. And do you draw inspiration from paintings when you approach?Sheila Heti:Yeah, I'm interested in the book as art. I think more than storytelling. I'm interested in the book as sort of an experience that you're undergoing in different way from just the experience of being told a story. I don't think that I'm so interested probably in the things that a lot of other novelists are interested in, character and plot and conflict and all those things.Michael Jamin:Well, it's really, I've heard you say this, it's really, you're writing various forms of you and it's very personal and very intimate. But you also made the distinction in something I read where there's Sheila, the author, then there's Sheila, the character. Is that right?Sheila Heti:Yeah. I mean, in two of the books there's kind of a character that sort of stands in a way for me, but it never really, it doesn't feel like a direct transcription of myself or my life or my thoughts. There's always this feeling of maybe it's like how actors are, there's a part of yourself that goes into the character and there's other parts of yourself that are left out.Michael Jamin:And so I was going to say, is there stuff about you that you leave out, for example? I mean, how should a person be? Or alphabetical diaries, it feels like we're talking about you, righ…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 114 - Actress Mary Lynn Rajskub Jan 03, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have actress Mary Lynn Rajskub (24, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Dropout, Brooklyn 99 and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about her new stand-up comedy tour she is doing and how that came about. We talk about so much more, so make sure you tune in.Show NotesMary Lynn Rajskub on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylynnrajskub/Mary Lynn Rajskub IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0707476/Mary Lynn Rajskub on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lynn_RajskubMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMary Lynn Rajskub:I don't know what else to do because I am an artist. So it's always been tied to my personal life and my personal expression, and there's a therapeutic aspect to it. And I don't really, I feel like if I could have taken the route of, I don't know. I never had the ability to be like, I'm going to write scripts, so I just kind of amped up the thing that I am good at.Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone. Welcome back for another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about today. I'm talking with a wonderful actress named Mary Lynn Reup, who I worked with many years ago. I was introduced to her. She's doing her hair right now. How'sMary Lynn Rajskub:Your side part going? Okay, go on.Michael Jamin:Many years we were teamed up to take a pilot out based on her life and many pilots that didn't go anywhere. But Mary Lynn is, you are one of my favorite Hollywood stories, and I'm going to tell it to you and I hope it embarrasses you because it was so funny. So we were working together on telling this pilot, and then it was a few years later, we were doing Marin, mark Marin, his show. We were running his show, and then we needed someone at the last minute to play themselves in an interview. So I text Mary Lynn, I got her number on my cell phone. I text her and IMary Lynn Rajskub:Say, oh, what did I do?Michael Jamin:I say, I say, Hey, Mary Lynn, I know this is last minute, but do you want to be in our TV show? And then you wrote back, yes, who is this?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Nope,Michael Jamin:Don't need to read a part. And we script's areMary Lynn Rajskub:Important.Michael Jamin:I'll be there tomorrow. I just assumed I was in your phone. So I was like, whatever. And then we later had you on LX Buddy system, but for the people who are not entirely sure who you are, I mean, you've done a ton of stuff. Most, I guess your biggest role was Chloe on 24, which was a giant hit. So you're Chloe, but then I was also looking through your credits and you also played Chloe on Veronica's closet. And I wonder if that was just a trial run for the nameMary Lynn Rajskub:Trial. Yeah, it's in the ether that the quirky awkward girl, oh, let's call her Chloe in Veronica's closet. She was androgynous and it was Wally Langham who played her assistant on that show, if I'm remembering correctly. Both of us. His character turned out to be gay. It was actually kind of a sweet story. And so we both were ambiguous sexually, and we both had crushes on Scott Bayo, which is not adorable, butMichael Jamin:Not anymore. Do you remember all the parts you've done like this? Do you have a good memory for everything you've done?Mary Lynn Rajskub:You've doneMichael Jamin:A lot of parts.Mary Lynn Rajskub:What's funny is you're pulling the switcheroo on me because normally people will say stuff to me and I'm like, I don't remember that at all. But things like this, if you ask me what the part is and what the story is, I most likely will remember that stuff.Michael Jamin:But when you Go ahead,Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, but there are some things where either, I don't know, it depends. Sometimes I'm in stuff, I'm like, I don't remember being there. I don't remember youMichael Jamin:Really. You sometimes turn on the TV and see an episode of something you've done done a ton. And they go, oh, look at there. There I am. Do you not remember?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. And it's funny, the way that you're saying it through the prism of the actual part, I'll remember that. But there's a certain, I don't know, there's certain events or one-off things or sometimes there's stuff on 24. There's a ton ton of guest stars because there's so much plot on that show, and there's so many people that get killed per episode, most likely. In that case, it's a person that I just wasn't on set with, and so I didn't have memorized the episodes of who all the characters are type of thing.Michael Jamin:Now you do a lot of, I see you posting, you're always on the road, you're always doing standup, but did you start as a standup?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I started in standup ish, yes. I was going to school for painting, and then it turned to performance art, and then I started making fun of performance art.And then I was in San Francisco and I was going to bars and doing open mic shows. I was really attracted to solo performers, but at the time it was more performance arty. And then once I started just organically making fun of it, I started to encounter comedians who would come to these. There was a crossover between artists and comedians who would go to the same open mics. And I remember seeing the comedians and going, oh, that's, oh, that's somebody that knows their voice, their natural at storytelling, because I was seeing a lot of just poetry from their journal and stuff like that. And it wasn't until I started meeting comedians that I was like, oh, those are my people. But I still didn't understand necessarily how I was being funny.Michael Jamin:And then how did you find your voice then? That takes a long time.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Oh, I think I just found it last week.Michael Jamin:Well, tell me why, how you found it. What does that mean for you to find your, I know what it means for a writer. What does it mean for you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:What I'm realizing, honestly, lately within the past few years, especially within the past decade that I've gone on the road doing comedy in earnest, is that I do have a story to tell. It's just taken me a long time to hone in on what that is. And a lot of it is just come from my life experience and putting together, oh, that's what I thought about that, reflecting on stuff, because I think when I first started, I grew up sort of in a bubble and pretty naive, and so I just was putting a vulnerability out there, but I didn't know what I was saying or what I was doing. I got a lot of acting because of thatMichael Jamin:Really. So you were vulnerable back when you were starting off?Mary Lynn Rajskub:A lot of times, and that's pretty much what I did on stages. I would improvise and I wouldn't know what I was going to say. And I can remember looking back, other people would be like, did you write a sketch packet for that? Again, there was a crossover between actors and comedy writers, and I used to just really beat myself up, and it's because I was so bogged down by whatever social anxiety and whatever my brain, the mechanism was geared towards performing, and I still can't quite articulate it, but I just know that I didn't have the presence of mind or the ability to, my brain just didn't work that way. I wasn't about to sit down and write a sketch packet. I had to go through it experientially year after year to be like, oh, I'm this type of person. That's why sometimes people will be like, they'll ask the generic question of who are your comedic influences? It's like, I never related to a guy on a stage in a suit with a tie going, here's what I think about this. It's only lately that I'm going, oh, I have an opinion on that, and it's a strong opinion, but it took me a long time to not be really reactive and really passive.Michael Jamin:But you still write out your material before as if any other comedian would, right? OrMary Lynn Rajskub:No? I do. I do. And now that I've been doing it so long, things will come to me and it's always a joy. You, and I'm sure when you're writing, sometimes you'll get those one-liners really quick that you're like, oh, that's fully formed. I'd have one line that's been in my act forever, but I just love it. It's like, did you know you could do a bunch of yoga and still be an asshole? And that's just a real quickie. I didn't sit down trying to write that. And then I have a whole another scenario that follows that, where it's like the kernel of it is truths, but the way it comes out is pretty fabricated.Michael Jamin:Do you have a preference as to, do you prefer acting or standup, or does it not make a difference to you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, at this point, I prefer standup just because there's, well, there's meat on the bone for that in terms of I get to be in control and I get to be on stage for an hour, and it's hard and it's challenging, it's exhilarating. I love acting. It's just lately it's been a bit of diminishing returns in terms of parts that I can actually be challenged by. I would absolutely love to have something that I can dig into and that would have a lot of layers to it, something that I could come back and continue to be that character. But I'm going on 10 to 15 years of the life of a lot of guest stars, which is great. I'm very thankful, and I will do that again. But that's got its own. You're coming onto a set where everybody knows each other and you're just like, I got to now in two days, fit into the tone of the show, and then I do my one thing and then I leave.Michael Jamin:And you prefer, because you do a lot of comedy, I mean, do you prefer drama then to do, is that more satisfying to you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, 24 was pretty satisfying just because it was such a big show and it was so different for me.Michael Jamin:But also, you were kind of the relief character. You were the awkward weirdo, right? Totally. Yeah.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah.Michael Jamin:But is there a plan then with your, I mean, I don't know why I'm asking this. Is there more to it? Is there a bigger plan for you doing all this standard? No,Mary Lynn Rajskub:I need your help because my helpMichael Jamin:Want your helpMary Lynn Rajskub:Would, my dream would be to be able to get another acting role that I could be a regular character on something. It's a big dream. My other dream would be to sell out the tickets in the small clubs that I do, so that I could sustain what I'm already doing. And so when you say, is there a plan, that would be the plan. I don't necessarily know if I get to do that or not. I've got a few more pushes in me, and if one of those things doesn't start to pay off, I will be trying to pay for my lavish lifestyle in some other way. Maybe OnlyFans, maybe some feet videos. I heard on OnlyFans, there's big breasted women making smoothies. I could do the small breasted women making smoothies on OnlyFans.Michael Jamin:Wait, so they're not naked, but they're just making smoothies. They're naked. Oh,Mary Lynn Rajskub:Let me talk to you about something. I've spent zero time on there, but I was podcast. I have a new podcast called that. Woo. You do. Please promote it because I thatMichael Jamin:Woo. You do for sureMary Lynn Rajskub:At that. Woo. You do. I have a partner. We talk about what's a woo that you do that, A magical thinking thing that you do in your life that you think, anyway, we were digressing and our producer went on to OnlyFans. The thing about it is there's whole universe of stuff. I think it started out as soft core porn, and now it's like everything. And I can't say much more. I only spent about 40 seconds on there. But you go on there, you get an onslaught of all different kinds of things that, I mean, people are doing comedy on there. People are doing,Michael Jamin:Oh, really? On there? Yeah. So you're saying not just porn, it's justMary Lynn Rajskub:It's not just porn anymore. Whitney Cummings is doing, she did the Burt Er roast on OnlyFans. Anyway, I'm here to promote my podcast at that. Woo. You do. They don't need,Michael Jamin:But let's talk about your, okay, so what's the premise of your show, your podcast?Mary Lynn Rajskub:So my friend Jeffrey and I, he comes on the road with me. He's a very funny comedian. He features for me, and we enjoy each other's company. And he may or may not, I may, he maybe carries crystals in his pockets sometimes.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I have some crystals right here. I keep 'em on my computer in case That's what I'm talking about for creativity. It's California.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. Fuels. So the podcast is what is the woo that maybe you're embarrassed about that you do that you think, have you written yourself a check for a million dollars? Do you keep crystals on your desk to harness the energy from the universe? We had a guy talk that he started praying. I had a story about going to visit a crystal skull. One lady talked, of course psychics came up. But there's all different types of little things that you think is going to give you or things that make you happy. And they're sort of like a magical thinking.Michael Jamin:But that's a great idea actually, because it's very small, but it's very optimistic and helpfulMary Lynn Rajskub:For a podcast. And I had one woman who was like, she wasn't on the pod, but she's like, I don't have a woo. I don't have a woo. And the more we talked, she said, I'm very organized though. And I said, well, what does that bring you? And then I love organizing as a woo, because that gives her a sense of peace and calmness. And it's like, what's that thing you do that makes you feel good?Michael Jamin:When I was struggling a few years back, I was all depressed about something. And then I read this book and it was very new agey. There's a lot of the book that was, I thought this is very helpful, but this is really helpful. But then it went a little too far, and I was like, ah, you're fucking ruined it. I was on board. And then you just took it one step so far. But one of the things that he said that I thought was so helpful, it was about kind of visualizing your life or whatever. And one of the things that was so helpful, he said, it's already happened. It just hasn't happened yet. Whatever you want. It's already happened. It just hasn't happened yet. And so I was like, that was so profound to me. It was like, oh. So now I just have to figure out how to make it happen. Already done. I don't know why. I find that really helpful. Maybe it doesn't help you at all.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I love that. Well, it sort of eases the pain of, I think the idea is like we're supposed to go through these challenges and take little steps, but it's like watering a plant. You're not just like, why aren't you grown? Why aren't you a tree yet? But you're like, oh, you will be a tree. And I just know you're growing and it doesn't help to go l…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 113 - Actor Chris Gorham Dec 27, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have actor Chris Gorham, (Out of Practice, The Lincoln Lawyer, NCIS: Los Angeles and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also discuss the work-life balance he has with his family and some of the things he wishes more actors were aware of while filming. There is so much more, so tune in.Show NotesChris Gorham on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisgorham/Chris Gorham IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0330913/Chris Gorham on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_GorhamMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptChris Gorham:But in getting to know them and talking to them, Almost all of them had day jobs, like worked for the city, Worked, worked for construction crews. They had full-on-day Jobs. Some of them were Entrepreneurs, some of them worked in government. And that was a New idea to me because that hadn't been my experience here. But as the income and equality has increased so dramatically, It feels like that's where our business has been going, where everybody has to have another,Michael Jamin:You are listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Chris Gorham:Like my backdrop, this is my, oh, I love it. Official SAG after LA delegate backdrop that we used him during the convention.Michael Jamin:I know you're a big show. We're starting already. I'm here with Chris Gorham, and he is an actor I worked with many years ago on a show called Out of Practice. He's one of the stars that was a show with starting Henry Winkler, stocker Channing, Ty Burrell, Chris Gorham, and Paul Marshall. It was a great show on CBS and only lasted a season. But Chris, Chris is about as successful working actors as you can, short of being like someone like Brad Pitt, who's known across the world. You've done a ton of TV shows, and I'm going to blow through them real fast here.Chris Gorham:Okay. You can, I can't talk about them still, but your strike is over so you can,Michael Jamin:Yeah, right, because Chris is, I guess he's in sag and actually you're one of the members, you're one of the, what do you call yourself, the king? SoChris Gorham:I'm the king of SAG aftra. No, I was elected to be on the LA local board and also elected as a delegate. So that's what this background was. Our official LA delegate background forMichael Jamin:The research delegate for for the model. What does that meanChris Gorham:For the convention? Yeah. It's kind of reminiscent of Model un. So it's the convention that happens every two years where all the delegates get together and we elect the executive vice president, and there's certain offices that get elected by the delegate membership.Michael Jamin:I don't think we have that in the Writer's Guild. I think we have a direct democracy. You, I guess have a representative democracy.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Yeah. It's a much bigger union. How bigMichael Jamin:Is it? How big do you know? AboutChris Gorham:160,000 members.Michael Jamin:Wow. Okay. Members, but that's active members. And what do you have to be to be an active member?Chris Gorham:What do you have to be? DoMichael Jamin:You have to sell? You have to work a certain amount or something?Chris Gorham:No, once you're in, you can stay in as long as you pay your duesMichael Jamin:Every year. Oh, okay. But then that doesn't mean you get health. You have to qualify for health insurance and stuff like that. Correct.Chris Gorham:Well, it's a big part of the strike. It's one of our big talking points really is only about 13% and just under 13% earn enough to qualify for our healthcare plan. And I mean, that's only about $26,700 a year to qualify for healthcare.Michael Jamin:That's a big deal. I mean, healthcare, healthcare. So most people don't realize this, and it seems so naive to say this, but I get so many comments when on social media, all these actors are millionaires. Dude, what are you talking about? You can be a working actor and book two gig. You're lucky if you do two gigs a year. AndChris Gorham:Well listen, it goes to the heart of what this strike is about is that it's worse than people even think because just to what's the best way to talk about it? So a big part of our asked during this negotiation is a big increase in the contributions to our health and pension plan by the producers. And the reason is that they haven't increased it in a long, long, long, long time. So for instance, one person could work, let's say you got hired to do an episode and got paid very well, right? For one episode. Let's say you're getting it, it's an anthology show. They're paying the top two people like series regulars, and you're getting a hundred grand for one episode. So you would think a hundred thousand dollars. That is a lot of money for one episode. If I'm doing that, I am clear. Definitely qualify. You do not qualify for healthcare because you've only done one episode and the producers only have to contribute up to a certain amount. So even though you've made a hundred grand in one episode, you still have to book another job, at least one moreMichael Jamin:And clear,Chris Gorham:Not going to qualify for healthcare.Michael Jamin:I've produced a lot of shows. I don't recall ever paying a guest star anywhere close to a hundred thousand an episode. No, not even close.Chris Gorham:No, no. And the minimums have, right now, I think for a drama, the minimum's around $9,000, maybe a little more than that for an episode for top of Show guest start like the top paid guest shows on those shows. Yeah, you can't. And it's become almost impossible to negotiate a rate higher than the minimums.Michael Jamin:You can have a quote and they go, well, that's too bad. This is what we're paying you.Chris Gorham:Correct. This is what we're paying you.Michael Jamin:Let me just run through some of yours so people know who we're talking about because some people are listening to it. So Chris is, I'm going to blow some of his bigger parts, but he works so much. So let's start with Party of Five where you did four episodes, which I love that show. I just had to mention that, but of course, popular. You did a ton of those. Felicity, remember that? Odyssey five, Jake 2.0, which you started in medical investigation out of practice, which I mentioned Harper's Island Ugly Betty, Betty Laa, which I loved, of course, covert Affairs and what else? I'm going through your list here. Full Circle two Broke Girls. You worked with two of the broke girls and insatiable the Lincoln lawyer, and that doesn't include any of your guest chart. So you are incredibly successful actor and you've strung, actually, I want to hit on something. Sure. So this is a little embarrassing on my part. We had a technical, this is our second interview because I had technical errors on my point. I'm not that good with technology, even though I've done well over a hundred episodes of this, and Chris graciously allowed me to do this over. But one of the things that you said, the thing that struck me the most during our last talk, which I found incredibly interesting and humble, I said to you, Chris, how do you choose your roles? And do you remember what you said to me?Chris Gorham:Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I said, I should be so lucky. Yeah. The reality is, it's like actors like me. I've had a lot of conversations with actors like me who star on television shows, multiple television shows, and we all joke about how many times we've been asked in interviews. The questionMichael Jamin:Really,Chris Gorham:Why did you choose this to be your next project?Michael Jamin:Right. Well, I wanted to eat. That's why.Chris Gorham:Yeah, yeah. Because I think journalists sometimes forget, and they think that we're all to use your example, Brad Pitt, and that we're being sent scripts and we get to choose what our next project is, but in reality, that is not at all. What happens, what happens for the vast majority of us is we are sent auditions. Sometimes we get the scripts, sometimes we don't. And we put ourselves now what used to be going to the casting office. Now we put ourselves on tape and we send it off into the void, and we hope that we get hired.Michael Jamin:And you'll work on a part. When you do get the script, how long will you spend preparing for that before you submit your tape?Chris Gorham:Oh, it depends mostly on two things. One, how many pages it is, and then it depends on how well written it's, to be honest. You've heard this before.Michael Jamin:Go ahead. Tell me.Chris Gorham:The better the writing, the easier it is to memorize.Michael Jamin:Right. And explain why that is.Chris Gorham:Well, the reason is is because it makes sense. If it's written like a human being talks, then the next sentence follows from the sentence before. If you understand the emotion of what's going on, then it just makes sense and the dialogue flows and it's just so much easier to memorize. The stuff that's always the hardest is when you're the character that's laying pipe and you're just spewing out exposition and it's not really coming. Listen, the good writers are always trying to tie it down to that emotional reality, but sometimes you got to lay pipe, and that's stuff's always the hardest, particularly if it's a bunch of medical jargon or legal jargon. That kind of stuff is crazy.Michael Jamin:And what people don't also realize, I think, is when you're starting out an actor, oh, I could play everything. I could play a villain. I could play a teacher, I could play a biker, I could play a doctor. That's fine when you're in your high school play, but in Hollywood, you're going to be cast the part that you are closest to because if not, we will cast someone who looks like a biker or who was a biker, and we'll cast someone who looks like a doctor. Right? Yeah. So you have to figure out who you are, basically.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Well, it's one of the, I went to theater school at UCLA and I was very lucky because during my freshman year, they decided to start a conservatory program within the theater program there. So we all auditioned and I got into this conservatory program. So for my last three years, it was conservatory training, and I still got my bachelor of arts degree from UCLA. It was the best of both worlds. One of the things that I felt like a few years out after having it is I wished they had spent a little bit more time helping us learn how to act like ourselves. You spend so much time in theater school, learning how to stretch your creativity, working on your voice, working on your body movement, body awareness, vocal awareness, and then learning how to play all these different kinds of parts and all the plays you're doing. All the parts are filled from college students. So sometimes you're playing an old man, sometimes you're playing a young woman who knows. But the second you start auditioning for roles professionally, you're only going to be seen for roles that you physically look like. And so it's really important to quickly learn if you haven't already, how to be you. Right. How do you do that version of you?Michael Jamin:Where do you begin with that?Chris Gorham:Well, it takes practice. We used to do an exercise. It was in one of the very beginning acting classes. In fact, I didn't even take this acting class. I was observing, I think my senior year, one of the grad students was teaching it. And it was just as simple as everybody got in circle and instead of being crazy and dancing like a tree or whatever, it was literally, it was just walk across. Just walk from point A to point B. Just you just don't do anything. Just walk from what, and you would be surprised how difficult that can be becauseMichael Jamin:You become self-conscious of what you'reChris Gorham:Exactly right. You become and you feel like you should do something mean. And especially for a bunch of theater kids who've kind of grown up in their theater school, all high schools and stuff all over, it's all about being big, and it's all about the jokes and getting attention and to let all of that go and just be in the market is a very difficult thing for a lot of people. But it's super, super important. And that carries through forever. Just being just be there. You don't have to do anything, particularly when you have a camera on you, and particularly when it's time for your closeup, you don't have to do a lot. You just have to be there and be present and alive in the scene.Michael Jamin:But so much, I think some people, they greatly underestimate how difficult acting is because it looks like make-believe and whatever. We're just, you're having fun on the camera, but to be in the moment, especially when the cameras are on you and everyone's watching in, go hurry up and go, because we've set up the scene for half hour and we want you to shoot it now. And it's so hard to stay in the moment, I think. So how do you stay in the moment when you become conscious that you're actingChris Gorham:Now? If I become conscious that I'm acting now, I'll just stop.Michael Jamin:You willChris Gorham:Often I'll just stop and say, can we start over? Can we just go back to the top because for whatever reason, and then go again. Because if I'm conscious, then I'm not in a scene, then it's not going to work and they're not going to be able to use it. So I would just stop and go back. I mean, it's the great advantage of film, right?Michael Jamin:But you do much theater anymore, because that's different when you're on stage.Chris Gorham:I only feel like benefits and things for years. We're rehearsing for one this weekend, we're doing the Girls Benefit to raise money for breast cancer research.Michael Jamin:So it's one show.Chris Gorham:It's one show. I mean, for me, I've been a single income family of five for almost 23 years. So with that, I haven't able to afford to go and do theater, but I miss it. I love it. I did two weeks, 14 years ago, I did two weeks in Spalding Gray Stories left to Tell in New York off Broadway.Michael Jamin:Really? So you were Spalding Gray, I mean, it's a one man show,Chris Gorham:Right? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a one man show split into five different personalities. So it's different parts of him. And so the business part, they would swap out celebrities every two weeks. And so I came in and did that for two weeks, and it was the best.Michael Jamin:And this was in New York?Chris Gorham:Yeah.Michael Jamin:That's amazing. How did something like that come up? How do you get that?Chris Gorham:I don't know. I don't remember. I don't mean it must've come through my agents or my manager. I don't remember. I don't remember.Michael Jamin:Wow. How interesting.Chris Gorham:Because now, I was just going to say now, it's been so long since I've done, I've become, I'm so out of the loop of LA theater in particular, which is kind of more feasible for me at this point, just because it's close and easy. I don't even really know how to get back in.…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 112 - Tasting History with Max Mille Dec 20, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have from the Youtube channel "Tasting History", Max Miller. Tune in as we about the origins of what made him start this channel as well as his New York Times best-selling cookbook "Tasting History: Explore the Past through 4,000 Years of Recipes (A Cookbook)." We also dive into the complications of trying to be successful on all forms of social media.Show NotesMax Miller on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tastinghistorywithmaxmiller/Max Miller on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tastinghistoryMax Miller on YouTube: @TastingHistory Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMax Miller:A lot of people are like, this feels like an old PBS show. Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's classier. Yeah,Max Miller:It is classier. And so I'm like, I don't think the thumbnail where I'm on there going, would, you're not going to, because the video is not going to deliver on that. That's not what the video is. And so then it is clickbait, and I hate thatMichael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about as always, people who are doing creative things who have invented themselves creatively. And so my next guest has done just that. He's tasting history with Max Miller. He is the host, and tasting history is a really interesting channel. Well, actually I'll get to it, but he's got 2 million subscribers, which is gigantic on YouTube. So Max, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.Max Miller:Thank you for having me. Excited.Michael Jamin:I am so inspired by what you're doing. So basically your show, for those who don't know, it's a cooking show, but it's also, he talks about it's historical cooking, so what they made in ancient Greece or whatever, or what prisoners ate, whatever. And so it's also, it's cooking, but it's also educational, which I find it's such an interesting little niche you have, and yet it's blown up.Max Miller:Yeah, it's crazy. I actually always say I have a history show where I cook because it's really to focus more on the history than anything else. Well, tell me, howMichael Jamin:Did this all start?Max Miller:It started, well, it kind of started with a great British bakeoff. When that show first came out, actually before it even came out here in the us, I got obsessed with it and started baking everything that they had on it, and that's really how I learned how to bake. But they would always talk about the history of the dishes that they were baking. They don't do that anymore. And so I would bring my baked goods into work. I was working at Disney, the movie studio at the time, and I would bring in the baked goods and tell all of my coworkers a little bit about the history. And then one of my coworkers was like, you know what? Go tell someone else. These little anecdotes, put it up on YouTube, find an audience. And so that's what I did. Wait, were youMichael Jamin:Trying to pitch it to Disney? Is that why?Max Miller:No, no. It was more that I just needed something creative to do my job at Disney. I loved it, but it wasn't super creative, at least not my creative thing. I was creating stuff for other people.Michael Jamin:What were you doing then at Disney?Max Miller:I had been working in marketing, so I had worked on the trailers and stuff like that. And then in the months before the pandemic, really, I was working in sales, selling our movies to the theaters, which was actually a lot of fun and challenging, but not super creative in the way that I like to be.Michael Jamin:But tell me, so you're not familiar, you moved to LA for what reason thenMax Miller:To do voiceoverMichael Jamin:To be a voiceover actor?Max Miller:Yeah, I had been in New York doing musical theater for eight years, and New York is exhausting. And I decided, you know what? I need a slower pace of life. So I moved out here and I had a few friends out here and I wanted to do voiceover. I was always much more comfortable behind a mic than I was on stage or in front of a camera. And so I was like, okay, animation, that's the way to go. And so I did that for a little while. Did youMichael Jamin:Have much success at it?Max Miller:It's funny you ask. So in animation, no. I did a few little things and in commercial, couple little things, but where I ended up getting a lot of work was in audio books because I have the voice of, especially then of a 16-year-old boy. And so I was doing a lot of YA audio books. Interesting.Michael Jamin:See, this is so interesting. Okay, so you were an actor trying to get even more acting gigs and you must have become alright. It's good that you made some money doing voiceover for books, but it doesn't sound like you were as accomplished as you wanted to be. Is that right?Max Miller:Yeah, no, I mean, I always had to be working at a restaurant or I started temping at Disney, and then that just turned into a full-time job. But yeah, I never made a full living for more than six months at a time. I always had to call back.Michael Jamin:So you were, as I talk about this a lot, actors and writers the same thing. Help me get in the door, help me do the, everyone's always begging for an opportunity. Get me in, please let me, and then I guess at some point you just decided, I'm tired of asking. I'm just going to do something that I want to do. And this is what happens when you put energy into something, you created your own little thing and you blew up.Max Miller:Yeah, no, I mean that's the amazing thing about YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. You couldn't do this 15, 20 years ago, or at least you could do it. It was just nobody would have a place to watch you do it. Now, it's not easy, but it's available. It's an option.Michael Jamin:From what I see your show, everyone should again check it out. Tasting history with Max Miller, it seems like it's really well produced and it seems like this is a TV show, but it's free on the internet. That's what I see when I look at it.Max Miller:Well, thank you. All I notice is, oh, my lighting this week was terrible or, oh God, there's a typo on the screen. I only notice all the mistakes that I make. ButMichael Jamin:Do you shoot this? It's in chat in the kitchen. Is the kitchen in your house?Max Miller:Yep.Michael Jamin:It's your kitchen and it's lit. Do you have a team helping you or you doing this all your own on your own?Max Miller:It's all me. YouMichael Jamin:Have no one helping you.Max Miller:I don't want to say no one helps me because my husband does the subtitles and he reads all the scripts beforehand to make sure that it's coherent, because once in a while I'll say something and he's like, what is this? And I'm like, everyone knows what that is. And he's like, no, everyone doesn't. So then I fix up. What aboutMichael Jamin:Editing and stuff?Max Miller:So I just in the last couple months brought on someone to help me with some of the editing. I still end up doing all the images and a lot of that, but she's fantastic and has cut down the major part of the editing for me because that was, I mean, I would spend 15 hours, 12 to 15 hours each episode just editing. And now it's maybe four. AMichael Jamin:Lot of that. Now you use a lot of time, I imagine, to research and to prep and to practice these recipes you're doing. Is that right?Max Miller:Yeah, research is definitely the most intensive part. It's also my favorite part though. It's probably depending on the episode, anywhere from 12 to 20 hours of research and then kind of crafting the script.Michael Jamin:So this is your full-time job now? This is how you make your living?Max Miller:Yes.Michael Jamin:Fantastic. It'sMax Miller:More hours than I've ever worked in my life,Michael Jamin:But I mean, you're great at it. You're great on camera. The content is very interesting, very engaging. Sometimes you take it in the field, which is a great write off. It's an excuse to get out of the house and shoot something on the field, which is great. Exactly. Have other opportunities come from this unexpected opportunities maybe?Max Miller:Yes, absolutely. One I'm not actually allowed to talk about, but it'll be something on the standard actual television, so that's exciting. And then the other is I wrote a cookbook, and that has done immensely well. It was on the New York Times bestseller list, which was something I never really expected that I would be on.Michael Jamin:Did they reach out to you? Did a publisher reach out to you or did youMax Miller:Yeah, they reached out to me shortly after I started the channel. Actually, I think it was about six months in. It was somebody who had watched my Garam episode and said, we would love to do this as a book. And it ended up being kind of rough because she was super excited about the project and she knew the channel, and then she got laid off. So I got transferred to another editor who has been absolutely great, but he didn't really know what to do with me. He did cookbooks. And I was like, well, this is a history book with recipes in it. And he's like, okay. So it took a little time to kind of figure out exactly what we were doing, but it ended up working out. ButMichael Jamin:This is interesting because most people will approach a publisher, please, I got a book by my, but when you build it yourself, it's the other way around, and it's just so much make them come to you, and it's because you put the work in first. And how big was your channel when they first reached out to you?Max Miller:Not huge. Maybe in the 200 to 250,000 subscriber, which is actually really big, but not where I am now.Michael Jamin:What was the first video that you blew up on? What was that?Max Miller:Rum? So I started the channel the last week of February, and this was, I think the third week of June. That's fast. It wasn't that long after starting. It was because it was covid and nobody had anything to do, but watch YouTube videos. I had been getting a few thousand views on my videos, which I thought was stellar. This really wasn't supposed to be a thing. And then within a week it was at almost a million views, and I had jumped from 10,000 subscribers to 150,000 in a week.Michael Jamin:Wow. Wow. Now, I guess you can't talk about, obviously you can't this project, this network project, but what about acting opportunities and I mean, you're a face now, you're this guy, people know.Max Miller:Yeah, I mean, when it comes to acting opportunities, everything right now is acting myself. And I'm sure that if I went out and auditioned, maybe I could get something, but I don't have time.Michael Jamin:Time.Max Miller:This is what it is. And really at this point, if I did something acting wise, I'd probably want to go back to musical theater, which was my first love and do some shows. But wow,Michael Jamin:I wouldn't roll that out. I mean, you keep on building your audience and I certainly would not roll that out. I mean, what is fame? Are you getting recognized now or what's it like for you?Max Miller:I am. I actually just got recognized at Costco today. Really? Yeah. It's funny. I get recognized very seldom here in Los Angeles because I think everyone sees people out all the time. But whenever I go anywhere else, I always get, which is pretty awesome. Even in Greece, really? In Greece, I recognized every day in Greece by people who watched this one video when I did this Spartan blood broth video. Everyone in Greece, I swear, has seen that video. So that's how they all knew me. I wonder if it's awesome.Michael Jamin:I wonder if fame for people like you is different than movie actors or TV actors in the sense that you're this friend that they watch on the Or what do you thinkMax Miller:It is more of that? I mean, I don't know what it's like for Beyonce, but I know for me, I do get a lot of people who it is, we already have a relationship and that we're good friends because we hang out for 20 minutes every Tuesday.Michael Jamin:But not only that, they're probably looking you on their phone, which is this, it's not even the TV mean to me that famous is such an interesting thing. I worked with obviously a lot of actors, but they create, when you're an actor, it's the character that they know. And sometimes they have a hard time differentiating between you and the villain that you play. It's like, that's not me. But with you, it's different. I think it must be very different. You're a friend, I think, right?Max Miller:And I mean, in the show, that's me. I'm not playing character at all. It's just this is how I am. And so it does create a bond. I guess you do get to know. It is so much more about the creator. There are other people who have maybe started to kind of do what I do or that were already kind of doing what I do slightly differently. I'm not the first person to cook historical food by any means, but I'm me doing it and they are them doing it. And so it will always be different. People are like, oh, they're coming for you. No, there's so much room for everyone because everyone is an individual. And b, Dylan Hollis approaches historic food in a very different way. I don't know if you know him, but he's on TikTok. He's huge. He's fantastic. He has a great cookbook out, but his personality is his personality, and mine is mine. And even if we covered the exact same topic, it would be done in such a different way.Michael Jamin:Was there ever any imposter syndrome on your end? I didn't go to culinary school. I'm not a this or thatMax Miller:Every day. I mean, the fact that I have a cookbook out is insane. Yeah, no, there is both on the cooking end of things and the history end of things, because I'm not a trained historian either, really. The show is just me reading things that I thought were interesting and me fumbling my way through the kitchen until I come up with something that I think was what the recipe was trying to get at.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, a lot of times these recipes as I look at 'em, they just say what the ingredients are. They don't say the proportions. They certainly don't say the temperature was cooked at if it was cooked in middle Ages. And so you're just going by what you think it should be.Max Miller:Yeah. They're all vague sometimes to the degree of, you can't even tell if this is a bread or a soup, kind of vague. But with context clues, you can't just read the recipe. You have to read other things usually in the cookbooks or other cookbooks from the time. And then leaning on other historians and scholars who have done work for years and years, you're kind of able to make an educated guess on a lot of things. But that's all it's ever going to be.Michael Jamin:But can you tell me how food dishes have changed over the centuries? Are we using way more sugar now or something?Max Miller:Oh yeah. Yeah. And I mean, partly because our pallets have just changed in a way, at least here in the United States, but also be…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 111 - Influencer/Creator Expert Taylor Lorenz Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have influencer/creator expert Taylor Lorenz. Tune in as we talk about her book, “Extremely Online: The Untold Story Of Fame, Influence, And Power On The Internet” as well as her experiences working as a journalist for “The Washington Post” and “The New York Times”. We also dive into some tidbits she has about social media.Show NotesTaylor Lorenz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz/?hl=enTaylor Lorenz on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz?lang=enTaylor Lorenz on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp38w5n099xkvoqciOaeFagMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptTaylor Lorenz:These old school entertainment people come on and they don't really understand the app and they clearly are not doing it themselves. They have some content assistant and then they're like, Hey kids, I guess I have to be here now. And it's like, what are you doing here? I will say the musicians do a better job. Megan Trainor has Chris Olsson, but TikTok buddy that, and music is such a part of TikTok, I feel like they get a warmer reception.Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, what the hell? It's Michael Jamin talking about today. I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about. So for those of you who have been listening for a long time, I'm always telling you, just put your work out there. Get on social media, start making a name for yourself, because whether you want to be an actor or a writer or director, you got to bring more to the table than just your desire to get a big paycheck and become rich and famous. If you can bring a market, if you can bring your audience you're going to bring, that brings a lot to the table. And so my next guest is an expert on this, and she's the author of Extremely Online, the Untold Story of Fame, influence and Power on the Internet. I'm holding up her book. If you're watching this podcast, if you're driving in the car, you can imagine that there's a book and has a cover. So please welcome, pull over your car and give a round of applause to Taylor Lorenz. Thank you Taylor for coming and joining me for talking about this. It's an honor meeting you finally.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, likewise. Excited to be here.Michael Jamin:So you wrote this great book, which I read, and there's so much, I guess there's so much. You actually document the history starting from the beginning of mommy bloggers and all these people who kind of were at the forefront and then built a name for themselves on social media. And so I'm just hoping to talk to you about how we can take some of this information and apply it to the people who listen to my podcast and follow me on social media so that they can help do the same. So I guess starting from the beginning, what was interesting that you pointed out is that women were kind of at the forefront at this whole thing. You want to talk about that a little bit?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, definitely. I mean, I talk about this in the book, but in the turn of the millennium, the early aughts, this blogging was taking off and there were tons of blogs, and I talk about some of the big political and tech blogs at the time, but it wasn't really until the mommy bloggers entered onto the internet in the early aughts who were these moms, these stay at home moms that really had nothing else to do. A lot of them were shut out of the labor market, and they turned to blogging and ended up really building their own kind of feminist media empires by building audiences. And they were the first to really cultivate strong personal brands online and then leverage those personal brands to monetize.Michael Jamin:And you're right about, I remember this may have been 10 years ago or maybe longer, one of my friends, our screenwriter, she developed a TV show on these mommy bloggers. And I'm like, wait a minute. And there was a couple of people who did that. Max Nik, who was a guest on my podcast a while, a couple weeks ago, same thing. He wrote a show based on shit my dad says, but it's on a Twitter feed and there's all these people. It's so interesting. I was a little late to the game in terms of Hollywood exploiting all these markets, these people who are making names for themselves. Lemme back up for a second though. Why did you decide to even write this book?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, so I started covering this. I started as a blogger myself a little bit later.Michael Jamin:What were you blogging?Taylor Lorenz:I was blogging about my life, a lot, about my life and a lot of about online culture stuff. I thought that the mainstream media was really bad at covering the internet, and so I thought, I'm going to write about the internet. This was when I was young millennial, right out of college.Michael Jamin:You were writing about your personal life?Taylor Lorenz:Yes.Michael Jamin:Okay. So that's a whole different thing. You're opening yourself up to everything. And was there any, I know I'm jumping around here, I guess I have so many questions, but I don't know, was there backlash from that? Were there repercussions? Because we're talking about people do this. What's the backlash?Taylor Lorenz:Well, this was like 2009, so it was such a different internet, and I'm so grateful, honestly, that I was blogging in that era and not this era because I think I didn't get a lot of backlash. I had a great community. I met some of my best friends, were other bloggers from that era. I became very popular on Tumblr for my single serving like meme, like blogs. So yeah, I think when you're young, you're just kind of trying a lot of different things out. I didn't know what I wanted to do out of college. I'd never studied journalism. I didn't know I was working at a call center and just became popular on the internet and then was like, I guess I'm pretty good at thisMichael Jamin:Stuff. Really? I didn't know that about it. You have a pretty big following on TikTok and Instagram as well, which is so weird because you're writing about something that you are also participating in. I mean, it's almost meta how you are, what you're talking about. No,Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. I mean, I started, had I been able to monetize my blog nowadays, content creators on TikTok, they can monetize in 2009, 2010, couldn't, the best that you could hope for was one of those book deals that Urban Outfitters. Right?Michael Jamin:ButTaylor Lorenz:You couldn't really leverage it into much. I ended up just leveraging it into a career in media, which has been fun. ButMichael Jamin:See, this is what's interesting to me because right now you see so many people on social media, how do I monetize this? Meaning ads or even sponsorships, but there's other ways to monetize outside of brand deals or views on YouTube getting used. So yeah, there's a whole, I don't know. Do you think that's a large percentage of people on the internet? It seems like to me most are doing it to monetize for the brand deals. What's your take on it?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, I think now that you can monetize in that way, a lot of people, that's their end goal. I'm kind of glad. I mean, it's a double-edged sword. Who knows what I could have done if I was able to monetize, but I'm really glad actually that you couldn't, because I think myself and a lot of other bloggers, we ended up going in a lot of different ways and entering into a lot of media type of jobs that, yeah, I mean would've never gotten otherwise. And I've learned how to be a journalist and I've gotten all these opportunities and my whole career from just experimenting and having fun online. So yeah, I think I always tell people, it's great if you can monetize, get the bag. If somebody comes to you offering you thousands of dollars, why not? But I think it's really good to take that virality and leverage it into, I like what Kayla Scanlan does, or Kyla, she's the economics YouTuber, and she gives all these talks about econ now, and she has a newsletter, and she's able to just do a lot more. It's not just doing a bunch of brand deals online. It's like using it to launch a career and whatever you want to have a career in.Michael Jamin:Yeah, see, I see. That's the funny, I think it's so smart what you're saying. I see some people, I'm like wondering, what's your end game out of this? Is it just to, but what you're saying is the end game, it's interesting. The end game is to do something else. And I wonder if that's what's going on with Hollywood people when I'm encouraging people to, I don't know, put theirselves out there with their art, their writing their music or whatever in my mind, to build an audience following to basically, so you can do the next thing. But I'm wondering how often that if you see that happening for people,Taylor Lorenz:I think the smart ones do recognize it. I feel like the internet, you're just hopping from lily pad to lily pad a lot of the time, which I know that's how a lot of creative people feel. It's just like, I think internet fame in itself can be a goal. I mean, look, someone like Mr. Beast, you've done it. You crack the code. Most people are not going to reach that level. And so it makes a lot of sense. If you're really into food, you're making food content, use that to open your own restaurant or food line or whatever, but use it to go into something that you're interested in because then you still, you always have that online audience. I still have my online audience. I have people that have followed me for a decade and maybe they know me from my blog or I had a Snapchat show in 2016 or things that I've done over the years, but it's always in service of my broader career.Michael Jamin:And so Well, maybe tell me what that is. Do you have a broader goal ahead of all this? Other than getting a book, which is pretty impressive.Taylor Lorenz:I know. I never thought I would write a book. And then just, there was a lot of revisionist history once the pandemic hit in 2021 and all these venture capitalists were pouring money into the content creator world, and TikTok was taking off. People were just kind of like, they were rewriting history. And I was like, I'm going to write the definitive history. I've been around for this. And I always thought it would be interesting to write a book. I didn't know anything about the publishing industry, except I have a couple friends that did those Urban Outfitters typeMichael Jamin:Books. That's so funny.Taylor Lorenz:See,Michael Jamin:Oh, go ahead. I don't cut you off. So your broader goals. Oh, yeah.Taylor Lorenz:I love media. I love media. I want to keep working in media. I love creative sort of endeavors. I like writing. I make videos as I am very obsessed with news media, so I wantMichael Jamin:To, right. So maybe more of that. There's a couple of things in that book, in your book that kind of took me a little bit by surprise. One is there are, well, first of all, I think there are people who make content. This is just my opinion, their content's a little disposable. And so you spoke about people who, I don't know, it's like pranksters who they got to keep upping the prank until it comes to a point where this one woman you're talking about, she was sick to her stomach with the pressure of having to come up with something all the time. And to me, it felt like that's because you're making, I guess I have a rule. I have a rule. I was like, I don't want to spend more than 10 minutes a day on this. But there are people who spend on posting, but there are people who put way a lot of time and pressure on this, and it winds up destroying themselves, don't you think?Taylor Lorenz:Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, there's a whole bunch of that in my book of just the burnout. And I think, like you said, it comes from just making content for content's sake and feeling like it's an extra burden and giving it, it's also when it's your whole livelihood, the stakes become higher. That's why I say you should diversify a little bit.Michael Jamin:Yeah. There was another, the thing that really surprised me that I learned from your book, because I'm a little older, so I don't really know all this stuff, but there's a whole culture of content creators who their job is just to talk shit about other content creators.Taylor Lorenz:And I'm like,Michael Jamin:Oh my God. And I've witnessed some of this stuff, but I didn't realize it's really a thing, like a gossip. They're just gossipers, right?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. They basically have replaced tabloid news for the internet, and yeah, it's a huge drama channel industrial complex online that you're lucky if you've not encountered.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And do they go anywhere with, what do you think is the end game for them?Taylor Lorenz:Well, I mean, the woman that runs DUIs, which is more of a blind item, celebrity news page, she has a podcast. She also, she wrote a novel kind of based around the content. Others like Diet Prada have really successful newsletters. A lot of the other commentators like Keemstar and stuff, their goal is just to basically run these media empires of gossip, kind of like a TMZ for the internet.Michael Jamin:And then how are they further monetizing though?Taylor Lorenz:They monetize through partnerships and brand deals and a lot through YouTube ads. They get a lot of views. A lot of them get a lot of views on YouTube.Michael Jamin:See, I just turned, maybe I'm crazy, but I turned down a brand deal today because I thought, I don't know, it doesn't align with anything that I stand for. And I was like, am I crazy for turning this down? Or I don't know. But have you get approached by things that, are you turning stuff down?Taylor Lorenz:Well, yeah, I have to turn down so much stuff. I'll never forget a tech company, which I will not name, offered me $60,000 to do three video, three audio chat rooms for them.Michael Jamin:What is an audio chat room?Taylor Lorenz:Like? A live chat type thing? It was going to be like three hours of work. And obviously I couldn't do it because I can't take on sponsored content. I'm a journalist. You can't do that, especially not with a tech company. But I have to say that one really made me question my career choices. Normally people are like, can you promote X, Y, Z? And I explained that I don't do.Michael Jamin:So there's nothing that you can promote a journalist. There's nothing.Taylor Lorenz:I mean, I could theoretically probably promote companies that I don't cover, but I don't really want to, I don't need to make $500 promoting a mop.Michael Jamin:Right, right. Yeah, it's so interesting. You have to protect what you, it's so odd because I don't see a lot of people making brand when I'm scrolling through my pages for you a page on TikTok, I don't see a lot of people making brand deals, but I guess they are, right? Am I not seeing it?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, the branded content doesn't always live on TikTok. A lot of times they'll create whitelisted content that the…

Full show notes at the publisher

Bonus Episode - October 7th Webinar Q & A Dec 08, 2023

Show notes

On October 7th, I hosted a webinar called "How Professional Screenwriters Create Great Characters", where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique characters, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:I feel like we're overthinking this a little bit. I feel like maybe we're giving labels that don't need to be labeled. We have a hero. We're going to put this hero on a journey. And who are the people? Or if it's a like a buddy comedy or whatever we're talking about, or if it's a husband and wife or whatever, what's the story? What's the journey we're putting them on and who are the characters we're going to get in their way? You're listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin, and today we're going to answer the question, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about questions from my previous webinar. As many of you know, I do a webinar every three weeks or so where I talk about screenwriting and it's about an hour long and you're all invited and it's free. And I don't always have time to answer all these questions, but Phil is here with us visiting again. Hello, Phil. Hello and happy to be here. He's going to hit me with some of these questions we're going to answer.Phil Hudson:Lemme hit you baby one more time. Let's do it. All right. So again, kind of group questions, context for everyone. This was from a webinar talking about how professional screenwriters create great characters. You've got another really good webinar that a lot of people really like, which is how to write a great story. And so contextually, these are really more character based. There's some miscellaneous stuff, there's some break in questions. We've kind of grouped them together. So as I go through these, we'll just try to keep 'em on theme and let's get into it. Let's talk craft. Think Craft is always a good place to start. Anna Renee Chavez wants to know what big differences are there between writing for animation versus live action?Michael Jamin:Great question. Oh, and I just want to clarify everybody by webinars, you are free. Go to michaeljamin.com/webinar to sign up. I changed the topics, but whatever. So this woman wants to know what's the difference between writing for animation and live action? Not that much in terms of, and I teach 'em both in my course. The differences really are not that different. The only thing you want to think about is well ask yourself why is this show animated? What's the advantages to making this show animated? So in BoJack Horseman, it's a very real and grounded show, but you have horses talking and fish talking, or Whitney, you couldn't do that in live action. So you're taking advantage of the medium. If you have it animated, take advantage of it. When my partner and I did Glen Martin DDS, which is the show there a stop motion animation, we would ask ourselves, what's Clay tastic about this? We'd call it, because it wasn't claymation, but we pretended it was claymation. So what's Clay tastic about this scene? Is someone's head going to come off? So for example, we did an episode where the character, the boy got his head stuck in an elephant's ass. You can't do that in live action. So you can do that in animation, but the story itself, it's very similar. The stories are very similar. It's just that you just take advantage of the medium.Phil Hudson:Yeah, awesome. And I think another good example of this, where a choice was made to do live action RET link's buddy system, you had mentioned to me that one point that it's basically just a cartoon. It's like a live action cartoon with silly It is, but they can't be as silly as they could if it was animated and they could do whatever they wanted. So it still kind of grounds it in this reality, but it's still a bit silly.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it could have been a cartoon, but we would've gone even we did one episode where we turned Lincoln into a robot because the character was like, my life would be easier if I was a robot. So that probably would've been even better if it was animated. But in real life we just started putting 'em in crappy robot costumes.Phil Hudson:Yeah,Michael Jamin:But it was funny. We turned him into a robot, so it was kind of broad.Phil Hudson:Love it. Julia Wells considering extraordinary and ordinary pairing. What would you say about friends, how I Met Your Mother, or shows that are more grounded? I think this is in reference in your webinar when you're talking about your characters and putting your characters together or how you write your characters for a specific story, and there's a difference between extraordinary and ordinary if you want something extraordinary when you're pairing your characters together.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, most shows are like that. Most sitcoms, the characters are just normal people. And yeah, it was kind of like ordinary characters, kind of an extraordinary situations where it would've been unusual. I'm trying to think of an example from friends, but alright, so they did an episode where Joey and Joey and what's his name, not Kramer Chandler, the guy Chandler are going to sit in their chairs all episode, all ordinary guys doing something extraordinary. They're not going to move from their chairs and they're going to see if they get everything delivered and they're going to eat and drink and they're not going to get up, stuff like that. So I don't think it's any different from any other sitcom I've worked on other than the characters.Phil Hudson:I just started re-watching How I Met Your Mother, which I've seen who knows how many times. But it's a good background show while I'm working on stuff that's not necessarily logical, analytical stuff. And there's an episode where it's the Halloween party and he's the hanging Chad because he met the sexy pumpkin in 2001 during the election or 1999 or whatever. And so Barney's got tickets to the Victoria's Secret model, Christmas Halloween costume party, and he's trying to get his friend to this extraordinary thing and his friend won't leave. He wants to be at this party to potentially meet this girl on this rooftop again. And it's the push and pull of Come be amazing, stop looking for love, you're losing. So it plays really well in that situation. Alright, cool. AIA Saunders or AIA Sanders, I apologize for ruining that. How do you feel about basing a character on them knowing themselves or basing a character on yourself and your own doubts?Michael Jamin:Yeah, do it all. I mean, you should do it. You should totally mind your own life For stories, and I have a whole module on this in the course, and you can disguise it too, so people don't have to know it's you, but you're just stealing parts of yourself or parts of people as other characters, but you change it enough and change the name, but also change professions and change. You're just stealing attributes from people so they wouldn't know it. But that's what your life is for your life is to steal things fromPhil Hudson:Perfect. Charles Shin, do you have any tips or advice with coming up with great names for your characters?Michael Jamin:I spoke a little bit about this in the old days. We used to have a baby naming book, my partner and I, and then now it's kind of easy to go on the internet or just in life. You'll come across a street name and you go, oh, that's a good last name for a character. I just kind of keep a list. What was one? I had one the other day I added to my list, I can't remember, but it was like a street sign I go that I passed. I go, that's a good character's name.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I've also seen our showrunners on Tacoma fd. There's a random character as Chief Phil Dylan. Well, I'm Phil. It was the writer's pa and I replaced Dylan, the writer's pa.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's funny. I know they took that for you. I mean, they tend to do that a lot where at least Steve Lemi does. He'll just name characters after people he knows.Phil Hudson:Yeah. There's one line from Ike in an episode that I think you guys wrote. It's like Benjamin Duff or Benjamin CrumpMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Ben Crump was our DIT set. Right. So just throw people's names and give 'em fun stuff. Awesome. You also talked, I think you talked about funny names that go together too. At one point that was something you do.Michael Jamin:I talked about, I had a character named, what was his name? SomethingPhil Hudson:The third? It was something the fourth. The fourth, yeah. What was hisMichael Jamin:Name? God, I can't remember.Phil Hudson:It was like, but it was a bunch of things together that rhymed almost or had similar names.Michael Jamin:I'd have to look it up. I can't. Oh, Dan Danforth iv. That's what it was. Dan Dan. I had a character named Dan Danforth iv, and I just thought that was a good name because Dan Danforth is weird enough. But why did his parents have to saddle in with the fourth? Because, well, they felt like they had to because the father's the third is a generational thing. They can't, so they stuck this guy with his shitty name and what's that going to, having a name like that, you're going to be teased as a child. And I thought the character is kind of a feckless type and he became a sheriff of a small town as a way of demanding respect because he'd been teased all his life to be named Dan Danforth iv. And so now he has a badge, but people still think he's a dipshit. And so I just thought it was kind of a good name for a character like that, who's kind of feckless.Phil Hudson:Alright, jumping into the course and character related topics, these are a bit intermingled because a lot of what you talked about, and we even brought this up with Mike Repp and Kevin Lewandowski about how valuable that course, that character worksheet is. But because this webinar is about character, there are a lot of questions about character. So number one, pat Nava. How do you make characters that the audience wants to know more about?Michael Jamin:Well, it's not so much the characters, it's just the story you give them. So that's not so much the character. That's the story.Phil Hudson:There we go. Cookies and sugar. How do we make characters diverse and not self projectMichael Jamin:Diverse and not self project? They seem very different questions toPhil Hudson:Me. So this is, I think a really good question and from context for this, this person is a minor and they want to be a writer and they've been told by their well meaning adults in their life and mentors not to do that because it's a waste of time because you'll never make it as a writer. And that was a question she'd asked another point. So this question really speaks to me of something I heard really early on when I was studying, which is you are not your characters. Don't write yourself into your characters, which is kind of contradictory to the advice you give, which is writing your life for stories.Michael Jamin:Why not? I dunno why they would give you that advice. Why not? Yeah, it might've been because people were just writing self-indulgent material that could have been,Phil Hudson:I know on writing by Stephen King, he says that you are not your characters and it is a mistake to think that your characters will behave the way you would. So if you find your character doing something you wouldn't do, it is your job to allow them to do that. And I find that a lot with my writing. There are many things I write where I would never do as someone from a more conservative background who is religiously inclined, like my characters say and do things all the time. I'm like, oh, where did that come from? Not who I am, but that's what it felt like needed to happen as that character was coming through me. And I feel it's my responsibility to just let that happen. But the difference is to me is don't make your characters do and make the actions you would do. And if you're a more passive person, that's not a good thing for your character to be because your character needs to make choices. And that's the conflict of it all.Michael Jamin:But Larry David on Kirby Enthusiasm, he's playing himself, but Larry David is not that person in real life. These are just, it's a heightened version of himself. Larry David knows when to hold his tongue. His character doesn't, his character can't let it go. Larry David just playing. It's a heightened version of himself. It's the worst version of himself, which is why it's so funny he wouldn't do that in real life. I mean, Larry, he wouldn't do that,Phil Hudson:Right? But if you look at yourself, or even friends you have or people that you know and you say, I've got this buddy who is super quiet, but then when he talks it is just cuts with a thousand lashes because he is so sharp, it'll just take the wind out of your sails in a second. So if you have someone and you take that element and you say, I wonder how I can make that funnier. How could I take this tick that I have or that my wife has and just make it, turn it up to 11. That's where the comedy comes from and that's where the conflict comes from. So that's what you're saying by mind your life for stories and put your characters in situations you've been in, but don't do what you did necessarily.Michael Jamin:You could turn it up. Yeah, turn it up a notch. That's it. It makes it fun and interesting.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Cool. Matthew? I think he likes lasagna. Many people begin with an idea for a character. I've always been led by the concept and the plot, then I tailored the characters to fit within it. What are your thoughts on that method?Michael Jamin:Sure. I mean that works fine. I mean, if you can create someone who still feels real, like I said, even though Larry David is a heightened version of himself, it still feels real. It feels like he almost, it's not crazy. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that he would do that. So as your characters don't, as long as it doesn't feel like you're contorting the character to do something that your story requires, which would not be human behavior, at the end of the day, these characters have to be humanPhil Hudson:Like jumping the sharkMichael Jamin:Or jumping the shark. But also often my partner and I will write a scene and Seaver will say something like a character that's not human behavior. We're just making the character do this because two writers in Hollywood need him to say that, which is, I mean, sometimes we'll laugh, we'll say, why would a character say t…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 110 - Content Creation Expert "Coco Mocoe" Dec 06, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have content creation expert "Coco Mocoe”. Tune in as we talk about her unique eye on how to spot trends for the future, as well as what different social media platforms due for creators. We also discuss her thoughts on brand deals and what she looks for and her hopes and goals for the future. Show NotesCoco Mocoe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocomocoe/Coco Mocoe on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cocomocoe?lang=enCoco Mocoe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UC7MC6lTh3ui3_id2n-vnlPQMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptsCoco Mocoe:Again, also with TikTok, it's always about reinventing, even though I always talk about marketing, but I feel like every three months I have to find a new way to present the same information that I've been talking about. So truly the best creators are the ones that are able to reinvent themselves, even though they're still providing the same information, but finding new ways to bring it to the feedMichael Jamin:You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back. I have a very interesting guest for everyone today. So anyone who's listening to my podcast for any amount of time, I've always said, if you want to break into Hollywood, just start doing it. Stop asking permission, start. Just make it count on social media and just start posting whatever it is you want to be good at. Make a dedicated account to proving how good you are at this one thing, whether it's writing, performing music, whatever it is, and let's just see where it goes from there. Because if you can't do that, well then Hollywood's not going to pay you to do it. You got to do it for yourself. And so my next guest is an expert in this field because not only does she make a living out of predicting trends about people who've done this before, but she's doing it herself in building her own presence online. And content absolutely is essential. I turn to it when I have questions. So please welcome Coco Moko. Thank you so much. Coco Moko, which I love your name by the way.Coco Mocoe:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's so funny when I made my username, my real name's Colleen, but I go by Coco Moko, and when I made the name, I didn't know my account would blow up, and so my managers were like, let's keep it though. It has a good ring to it. It does.Michael Jamin:But tell me, okay, so I know you've made a living at it doing this, but before you started doing it for yourself, who were you working for?Coco Mocoe:Yes. It's such a great story too. It was kind of divine timing, I guess. So I studied marketing in college, and then after college, my family's from the LA area, so I was super lucky to just live in LA. And I started a job that I got off Craigslist, and it ended up being this website called Famous Birthdays. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's very Gen Z Young. It's kind of like Wikipedia, but at the time, famous Birthdays was the only website really documenting YouTubers and at the time, musically kids. And so we had a really big audience of 12 year olds. And so I got hired there and my job was to run the musically, which had then turned to TikTok. So I was on the app early, and then the founder of Famous Birthdays, his name's Evan, he's like, if you ever see someone on your free page that you think is going to be famous, just invite them in and we'll interview them.And shortly after that was when I saw Charlie Delio when she was really early. We invited her in and we were her first ever interview, and that went super viral. And then there was a few others from that kind of era of kids and because of the videos that I was working on at Famous birthdays that were getting, I think one of the videos with Charlie Delios at 40 million Views on YouTube. And because we got an early, so, but then from there, I then got hired at buzzfeed, and I was at Buzzfeed for three and a half years where I was working on the backend with strategy, coming up with videos, and it was really just my job to go into meetings with different brands and creators and stuff and just tell them what I think the upcoming trends will be, how I think platforms are shifting, mainly TikTok and how I think that they can best create ideas that will go viral or work with people that aren't famous enough yet that they're going to decline but are eager to come in. And so that was really where I got the start with predicting and stuff, and where I learned that I had a good eye for pattern recognition, and then I just started making my own tos. That kind of blew up. And then I quit my full-time job in June of this year and have been just doing full-time stuff since.Michael Jamin:And so now you have close to a million followers, which is huge. Thank you.Coco Mocoe:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Then so, okay, so when you work for yourself, what does that mean?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, so I never really thought that I would go the consultant route. It was something that kind of just happened as a result of the videos that I was making. I never posted my trend prediction videos or algorithm decoding kind of videos with the intention of getting hired, but I was getting so many inquiries from really big brands that wanted to just pick my brain for an hour or so when I was at buzzfeed. And then I just felt, I mean, it was the different legal non-compete clauses and stuff. And so I just eventually realized that financially it made more sense to just take an hour meeting with a brand and make what I would've made in a month. And I'm so lucky you never know how long it's going to last. I'm very, very lucky. So that's kind of what the full-time thing is. Consulting sometimes brand deals. I don't always like to do a ton of brand deals. I don't want my account to just feel like one big commercial. And then I've been lucky enough to have a lot of music people actually reach out to me and I consult on the music side as well, so super lucky. ButMichael Jamin:Yeah. Okay. So big brands want your opinions, but are you saying also that the creators as well want your opinions?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, a lot of creators, and I actually, that's why I made the podcast that I have ahead of the curve, which hopefully you'll be able to come on one day when your book comes out. Yeah, I love that. And I do my podcast because I can't meet with everyone, and so I started doing that for a way to reach more of the creators. But yeah, I do have a lot of creators reach out. I feel like bandwidth wise, it's hard. So I try to find ways to reach out to people in my community that isn't always just a money exchange or a meeting and stuff. So I'm still figuring it out, but I've been very lucky since I went full-time with this.Michael Jamin:You must know this, or I'm hoping. So when a musician, an actor or whatever comedian, when they're reaching out to you or they're following you, what is it do you think they want, do you think they just want to blow up on social media or do they want to move to what I do traditional Hollywood?Coco Mocoe:Yeah. No, it's such a good question, and I think a lot of it when I do get more of the bigger celebrities that have followed me every now and then, I'm always like, I don't know. At first I'd be like, I don't know why. I don't know what value I'm even providing them. I remember one time Paris Hilton followed me and I was like, she is the biggest influencer in the world. And I'm like, what could I potentially provide to someone like that through my videos? But I think a lot of it too is just when I've talked to people who have followed me, whether it's an actor or a musician or just a person who's watching tos and has never made one before. A lot of the times they say that they like that my videos are able to take something happening on the algorithm or on marketing and media, but I kind of give a bigger lens to it as well.I'm able to connect the dots to everyone, whether you're watching it, whether you are the one making the content and really simplifying it and not just making, I think a lot of when I would watch marketing videos and stuff, it would be a lot of broy ad talk, which that's important talk too, but I never really related to the AB and that kind of stuff. I liked being like, this is why this person watched it. So anyways, I think that if it is an actor or musician following me, I think some of it is just curiosity. I don't think they always have the intention of using my videos as strategy, but when they do, I think it's because as working in entertainment, it really is an attention economy, and the way that people give their attention is constantly shifting. You could make the best piece of work and you just never know if the attention's going to be there or not. I think them watching my helps maybe dissect why certain things go viral, but again, you never know. You never really know. It's just always up in the air. But I try to bring sense to it.Michael Jamin:It changes. Everything changes so fast. Whatever the algorithm, whatever the new trend, whatever's going on, changes fast. And I feel like you always seem to be on top of it. How are you on top? Are you just watching videos all day and making lists and stuff? What are you doing?Coco Mocoe:Yes. It's so funny. I get that question all the time. I do spend a good amount of time on TikTok. I try not to because I think sometimes I believe in there's this saying, and it's the universe whispers, and it's essentially this idea that once you finally turn off your phone and the TV and the for you page scrolling and you just sit in silence for a little bit, that's when the ideas will come to you. So I do try to take moments away from my phone, but I would say for me, I do spend a lot of time on my phone and watching the algorithm, but I try to be strategic about it, and I do have notes on my phone. I'm constantly writing down ideas, and this sounds really woo woo, but sometimes my most viral ideas actually come to me in if I'm sleeping or something. I think it's this weird moment where it's all the information I've received throughout the day finally comes into me and I absorb it in a way, and then I wake up and I'll film a video. That's why I always film right first thing in the morning. And those are sometimes my most viral videos. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Well, a couple questions for you. So now when I first got on TikTok, okay, I got a lot of followers. I'm like, well, why do I have all these? What's the point of followers? When your reach is so low, why do they give you that metric? If you have half a million followers and on any given day, 10, 20,000 will see your content,Coco Mocoe:That happens to me and I have an algorithm answer for that. And then I also have something that helps me when I'm making videos that happens to even the biggest creators. But one way that I still feel inspired to make content and don't get down on myself when that happens is I think the creator, Chris Olson said it. He's a pretty big talker. And one time he said, yeah, 300 views feels really low for the first hour of a video being up. But imagine if you were in a lecture hall and 300 people walked in, that would be a really exciting feeling. You'd be nervous to speak to that many people. And even if I get three or five comments the first few hours, I think, well, I just gave a lecture, and that essentially is three people came up to me after and wanted to ask me more questions about it.So that's one way I try to still think that I'm adding value. And I feel like the biggest thing I hear from whether it's creators, celebrities, or brands, is, and it happens to everyone. So it's a universal experience, especially on TikTok. They always say, I feel like the algorithm hates me now. I feel like I'm shadow banned. And I agree. I think that things like that happen on the algorithm. What I think happens sometimes, I wonder if TikTok will inflate numbers every now and then where I'm like, I don't know if I actually got that many views, or it's almost like a lottery. I think that they gamified creating content in a way that almost feels like gambling, where you're rewarded for doing it more and more. But then it also can be exhausting and disorienting. And I think one thing that I've noticed sometimes happens is that one, people consume videos on their for you page and not always their following.I don't really know a lot of people that use the following tab to watch videos. So TikTok is so weird. I could follow a creator and never see one of their videos again. Yeah, it's just, it rewards people for finding new creators every day. But one more logistical piece of advice that I've heard and that I theorize, I don't know. I say it's like a Tin hat theory about the algorithm, but I think that TikTok, there's a human element to it, and they specifically push out certain trends or certain things happening in the news, and then when they're ready to shift to a new trend, whether it's because they have brands that want to promote something on their app or whatever it is, they will not necessarily shadow ban certain creators, but they shadow ban certain hashtags. That's just a theory I have. What often happens when I talk to people when they're experiencing it is I'll tell them to pull back on all of their hashtags, don't use any hashtags, and sometimes that will subvert any, it takes a while.But yeah, so basically what I'm saying is when it does feel like the algorithm hates you, it's usually not just you, it's just that the topic that you're talking about, they feel like it no longer is relevant for whatever reason, and they're shifting to something new. And again, also at TikTok, it's always about reinventing, even though I always talk about marketing, but I feel like every three months I have to find a new way to present the same information that I've been talking about. So truly, the best creators are the ones that are able to reinvent themselves, even though they're still providing the same information, but finding new ways to bring it to the feed. If TikTok is enjoying videos that are longer than a minute, making videos that are longer than a minute, if TikTok is preferring green screen videos going into green screen. So it really is kind of this tango that you play, butMichael Jamin:Ultimately it seems like, I'm sorry, like a vanity metric that they give you, which doesn't do any, okay, so why are you telling me this number?Coco Mocoe:Exactly. I 100% agree, and it's why I think it's great. You have your podcast, and I've heard you on other podcasts when I was looking up things about the strike, I remember listening to you as a guest on podcasts, and that's why I always encourage people, do not let TikTok be your number one. That can be your Trojan horse. It can get you exposure, and it can get you into the room that you want to be in, but it is not sustainable. TikTok is so finicky one day it'll love you. The next three months, it'll hate you. So really having things outside of T…

Full show notes at the publisher

109 - Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick Nov 29, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have Writer/Showrunner Max Mutchnick from Will & Grace, The Wonder Years, and many many more. Tune in as we talk about his journey as a writer and what some of his creative goals and hopes are for the future.Show NotesMax Mutchnick on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0616083/Max Mutchnick on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxmutchnick/?hl=enMax Mutchnick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxMutchnickMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMax Mutchnick:By the way, I think Miley Cyrus is the only sitcom actor who is able to move the needle. They push you during sweeps. Can you get a Shatner? If we could get Shatner on Big Bang. I know we'll write, that's probably not a good example because it probably worked. But for the most part, shows just get what they get. They always get what they get. It doesn't matter. These co-stars and these, none of that mattered,Michael Jamin:Right?Max Mutchnick:Is it funny? And do you like the people? Do you like the people? Do you like what? They like the world of it?Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today, I have a wonderful guest that no one deserves to hear. And yet, as a gift, if you're driving your car, pull over, you're going to want to hear this guy, this man and his writing partner, they are responsible for literally one of the biggest hits in the modern era. I'm talking about Will and Grace. This is the co-creator of Will and Grace Max. Much Nick, but lemme tell you what else he's done. All right. It's not just that. I'm going to run through his profile for a second and then I promise I'll let him get a word in edgewise. One word's Dennis Miller show. He was right around the Dennis Miller Show, the Wonder Years Good advice, the single Guy Dream on co-creator of Boston Common Co-creator of Good Morning, Miami Co-creator of Twins, co-creator of Four Kings. This guy's got a lot of work done. Shit, my dad says. Co-creator, partners co-Creator clipped, co-creator, and of course Will and Grace Max, welcome to the show. And let me tell you why this is so meaningful to me to have you hereMax Mutchnick:And me too, just to get an award in.Michael Jamin:Okay? I wonder if,Max Mutchnick:And by the way, those credits were in no particular order.Michael Jamin:Well, it is the IMDB order.Max Mutchnick:It's a weird order, but I'm still thrilled to be here. So I'm going to let you keep going because I like all this.Michael Jamin:Everyone loves having smoked Blunt.Max Mutchnick:It's fantastic.Michael Jamin:Let me tell you why it's so meaningful, because one of the very first jobs I had in Hollywood, I was a PA on a show called Hearts of Fire a max, and his partner writing partner David, were, I don't know if you guys were staff writers or story editors,Max Mutchnick:I think on Hearts of Fire, we were staff writers. I think we were staff writers. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So I'd get you lunch. That's basically it. But you guys were, you guys were so kind. You always let me in. I come into your office, you'd invite me into your office, which to me felt like a big deal. And you guys were both, to me, you were the epitome of what a comedy writer is supposed to be like larger than life, charismatic, funny, ball busting, but also just, I don't know, just energetic and enthusiastic and bursting with creativity and to be around you guys threeMax Mutchnick:Seconds away from tears at all times.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh yeah, thatMax Mutchnick:Too. But I mean, we maybe didn't show that to you, but again, I hate to interrupt you when you're saying all this nice stuff.Michael Jamin:Well, I do remember one time, David, I was sitting with you and he's like, what have you heard? I'm like, what have I heard? What do you hear? I'm like, dude, you guys are the only people who talk to me. What have I heard? Nothing.Max Mutchnick:That's so good. What have I heard? And I was listening to you, and by the way, it gives me nothing but joy to be here, and I have to do full disclosure. So I start watching you and listening to you, and this is what happens when you get to be 40 57. I said, I'm like, I know him. I have a feeling of love for him. I do not know how we know each other. It's so funny. I couldn't remember the show that we worked on. I couldn't remember the show we worked on. And then I heard you talking about Mike and Maddie. Yes. The other day. And it was, which isn't on my IMDB page.Michael Jamin:It is. I skipped over it. I didn't want to embarrassMax Mutchnick:You. Yeah, no, I'm glad that we can talk about that too. But it all started at Hearts of Fire.I mean, it's just unbelievable. And that was such an incredibly formative time, and it's so interesting to me that you had this experience of us is mean, and by and large, that's what we are. I mean, I always look back on life and I reflect on it, and I'm always happy when I look back on the things that I've done and where I've been and where I'm going and all that stuff. But today, not so much. What do you mean? Well, it's like I'm saying, when I'm in the moment of today, a lot of times I really can get wrapped up in being depressed about the business and where things are. And I am starting to say things that like old people say, and I don't want to, because I always thought I would never do that. I would never say the business isn't like it used to be. But I'mMichael Jamin:Surprised you even feel that way. You've already accomplished so much. I don't think I would ever get to your level of success. I would've stopped long before.Max Mutchnick:I mean, that's nice. And I know that there are people who are in my position who feel like they've done it. And definitely the collision of a career and social justice, which kind of took place with Will and Grace, the idea that we did this thing and that it had a reverberation on another level should be enough. But I am still a guy with ambition and drive, and I still feel like I have more to say, and I'm not spoiled in that sense. I really don't want to be done at this age. And if anything, my ego is in a better place because I can even fantasize about the idea of being in a room that I wasn't running, which is crazy because that's in the middle of my career when it's at that really hot space. It's like, oh no, I could never be in a room that I wasn't in charge of. But that's not how I feel so much. But theMichael Jamin:Hours are so long and exhausting and you're like, sure, I'll work till two in the morning every night. Well,Max Mutchnick:I couldn't. That's the one thing I would don't feel like that is something that ever needs to be the case. I'm way into having dinner with my family, and I feel like it's after 10:00 PM it's diminishing returns. I actually think after 8:00 PM it's diminishing returns because emotionally you get so your skin starts to break out. You're eating out of styrofoam, and it's just not, it's so bad for where you are. You have to just love the fucking show you're on. Can I say bad word? YouMichael Jamin:Can say, sure. You can say show.Max Mutchnick:You have to love where you are so much to be working late or own. ButMichael Jamin:How did you keep, were the hours good on Will and Grace?Max Mutchnick:Yes. Because we've run a meritocracy and we always have, and that is the best idea will out. So I don't care if it comes from a LB like Michael Jamin or if it comes from John Acquaintance, wherever the best idea and wherever the most honest idea that's organic to the characters comes, and that's the one we're going with. And I'm very, I think one of the things you master or you have to master to be a showrunner that works well and runs a tight ship is the ability to say no quickly and without a lot of ting. So I'm going to say no, and I'm going to say it quickly, and it's going to feel like it hits you hard, and maybe it does. But in order for us to run a tight ship, that's just the way that it has to go. Famously, one of the best showrunners of all time, David Crane, I guess really, it was very democratic and everybody got to talk and pitch, and he didn't cut things off fast. I mean, sometimes there's a German there and you've got to find it and tease it out and stuff like that. But for the most part, immediately, no, that's not the way that we're going. And no, that's not the way the character.Michael Jamin:And they had long hours in that show,Max Mutchnick:Very, very long hours. They famously worked really late. And I was also listening to you the other day talk about those schools of,Michael Jamin:And that's what I was going to get to.Max Mutchnick:Yeah. And you could say that you talked about, there's the Friends school. I think there's also the Diane English strain. Did you mention that one?Michael Jamin:No, I did. I only really mentioned the one that I thought I came from, I think I came from, which was Frazier. Cheers Taxi. Right.Max Mutchnick:And I call that that's the David Lloyd's, I mean,Michael Jamin:And Chris Lloyd, yeah. Okay. What would you say your lineage would be then? And do you agree with that?Max Mutchnick:Yes, I did. I agreed with everything you said. I mean, my lineage is actually, it's a must see TV sound. It's an NBC, it comes down, but that's really the friend sound. And I come from that because my first real job was on Dream on which Martin David created. And then I came in late. David and I came in late on that show, but I also come from the Diane English School because Michael Patrick King was such a giant influence in my sound,Michael Jamin:And that was good advice or whatMax Mutchnick:Good advice. But he had come from Murphy Brown. Right, of course. So if you worked at Murphy Brown, you prayed at the altar and English. I mean, but those friends people, they just spawned so much, soMichael Jamin:Much. But you don't run the show the way they did, though.Max Mutchnick:Not at all. No, not at all. Yeah. We learned as much on shows from what not to do than from what to do. The benefit of being on shows where there, it's just, and I'm not using David Crane as an example because I've never been in a room with him, but we have been in rooms where either we weren't used or there was just endless talk that went absolutely nowhere and the decisions weren't made to just, that's good. That's it. Put it up on the board. You can get there very fast and not like there is a famous school that I don't want to talk about that it's good enough. It's good enough. It's good. Enough's not what I'm talking about. I don't do, it's good enough. But there is a world of shows that's run with that ethos.Michael Jamin:See, I thought one of the first, the advice that we got when we started running shows was I think it was Steve Levitan who said, just pick away, even if it's wrong, pick away. Yes. Or you lose the room.Max Mutchnick:Yes. I mean, it's like you can fu around forever about, oh, what you want to do with your life. I don't necessarily know that this was what I was going to do, but it happened and I went for it, and I got rewarded at a certain point. I feel like if you get rewarded in something that you're doing within six months to 12 months, stay there.Michael Jamin:Were you running a show that wasn't your own, it was your first job at, or No,Max Mutchnick:I'm I'm rare. I'm rare in that regard that I was at Emerson in college, and my dear friend was a comic named Anthony Clark. And Anthony called me and said, they're making shows now in la and there's a company that's very focused on writers who have strong relationships with standup comics. And the company was Castle Rock. And Larry David was just making Seinfeld at that time. And the guy that ran the company with Rob Reiner was a wonderful man named Glenn Paddick. And he gave us our first break, but we had to go into Warren Littlefields office as these young guys and argue for why would I ever give a show on this golden network to two guys that have never done the job before? You've never run a show.Excuse me. I was on single guy. So I mean, I had worked, but I had never run a show. The first time I ran a show and I wasn't even close to running a show. I was a co-producer. And I went in there and I said to him after I got David Cohan a white shirt with a collar like, you have no idea. The Prince of a collar and a what? The difference that it makes put on a goddamn buttoned up shirt. And we go and we sit in there and I say to Mr. Littlefield, who I owe a great deal to, if you give me the keys to the car, I promise not to scratch the car. And if I scratch the car, you can take the keys away. You can bring in whoever you want. They can oversee me, but just give me, literally give me a week, give me a show, and I already know what to do and not to do, and I'll run this thing the right way.Michael Jamin:Wait, this was before you wrote the pilot? This was just to get the chance to,Max Mutchnick:We had written the pilot and they wanted to make it. Oh, okay. And then they said to our agents, or they said to Glenn Pad, Nick, these guys have no experience. You've got to go get showrunners. And I was just so anti the idea that someone was going to creatively be open, and I asked for the meeting and I begged him, and I kind of tell that story. And the whole truth of that story is a day or two before he went to our agent and said, I want someone at that table read who runs a show. I want an experienced showrunner in case at the pilot table read, they fall apart. And God bless the writing team of Roberto, Roberto Bebe and Carl Fink, even Fink, I think. And I could be getting that wrong, and I hope someone calls us out on it. But anyway, those guys were so cool. And they sat at the table read, and we got our notes, and then they walked up to us on the stage where we were shooting the show on Radford, and they were like, you got this boys, we'll see you later. And we never saw again. Really. And then we were show running.Michael Jamin:Did you bring top heavy writers to the firstMax Mutchnick:David's sister who wasn't the superstar,Michael Jamin:Right. That she's nowMax Mutchnick:WasMichael Jamin:I'm talking about your first staff I'm talking about.Max Mutchnick:Yes, I know. Yes. Really. And I don't know who the third one was. I remember there being, it was a mini room before. It was self-imposed before it was imposed on us. And it was just this very tiny group because David and I didn't know how to ate and do all that. And we figured we would do all of the heavy lifting, which was not possible. And we eventually brought in Carrie Lizer, but we started with a very, very tiny group of writers and just crawled our way through.Michael Jamin:Wow. Yes. It's cool. Should we spend the next 59 minutes talking about the single guy, or should we continue talking aboutMax Mutchnick:Your No, no. Can't talk about that show. But it was really cool to work with Ernest Borgne, and I…

Full show notes at the publisher

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected